How would MAGIC POTIONS work in real life? | FANTASY RE-ARMED
Вставка
- Опубліковано 21 жов 2021
- Be sure to check out this video's sponsor, Campfire writing, to take your worldbuilding to the next level: www.campfirewriting.com/?utm_...
Magic potions are not as simple as they are often depicted as they would change and effect their world in drastic ways. So let's explore different wats Magic potions can be implemented in fantasy!
Buy my sword IMPERIOUS from Calimacil: calimacil.com/products/imperi...
If you like the content and want to support the channel, you're welcome to do so through patreon or subscribe star:
/ shadiversity
www.subscribestar.com/shadive...
My novel, Shadow of the Conqueror Audio Book affiliate links:
US: www.audible.com/shadbrooks
UK: www.audible.co.uk/shadbrooks
CA: www.audible.ca/shadbrooks
AU: www.audible.com.au/shadbrooks
Ebook, Paperback and Hardcover available from most major book retailers, here are a few of the main ones:
Amazon affiliate link (be sure to navigate to your country's amazon site):
amzn.to/2XErUaR
Barnes and Noble:
www.barnesandnoble.com/w/shad...
Kobo:
www.kobo.com/au/en/ebook/shad...
Come check out my new channel GAME KNIGHT: / @knightswatch
Awesome Shirts and chainmail print clothing: teespring.com/en-GB/stores/sh...
Community run discord server: / discord
My official website: www.shadmbrooks.com/
Why did I start Shadiversity? and many more questions in this great interview with Patrick of Calimacil: ua-cam.com/video/9VkR5BgCjUQ/v-deo.html
A: to be able to legally behead Oz on a whim with a sword as often as desired.
Shad check out the potion/pill systems in alot of eastern fantasy (Xianxia), it's very interesting. Also in reference to an earlier magic knight video, you talked about how magic is normally not tied to physicality however this is mostly unique to the western audience as in many eastern magic systems magic (qi) is tied directly to your physical prowess.
Healing potion idea. Healing accelerates your metabolism to heal itself so consistent use of it is literally burning out your life span. The caveat being that it would be the option using up your body every time it fixes itself. I also really like the idea of drinking it while at full health and it not neccessary being cancerous if not a low percentage every time you drink a potion thus while saving you from death, it's not something you would continue to abuse. Or a potion being made from several different ingredients, a specific plant, blood of a specific creature, etc etc, making it rare and hard to come across. It also expands world building with people trying to farm these plants and mythical dangerous creatures to manufacture said potions. (Some kind of crazy hydra farm or something 🤣)
one idea for the health potion is it multiplies the amount of blood in your body, and it needs to be held together after the body absorbs it into the bloodstream. but when it leaves the stream bia wound it burns untiil the open wound is cauterized. wont explain away a broken bone but bythat point you're going to need a little more than liquid miracle to keep you in the fight.
Pathfinder 1e has potions and scrolls doing roughly the same function, but scrolls can only be used by spellcasters and are cheaper than potions. Essentially it's a medium for a spell.
"I took a potion that accelerated my brain!"
"Oh so you're smarter now?"
*"I'm stupid faster!"*
"I'm doing 5,000 operations a second and they're ALL wrong!"
If such things were real this would be the most likely result.
Reminds me of an old Simpsons episode:
Max Power: Kids: there's three ways to do things; the right way, the wrong way and the Max Power way!
Bart Simpson: Isn't that the wrong way?
Max Power: Yeah, but faster!
So, Barry Allen in season 7 of The Flash?
@@Marinealver they are it’s called caffeine
I like the way witcher potions work. They're typically dangerous to most people, thus not everyone has access to powerful healing substances.
And there’s a toxicity mechanic for drinking multiple potions
@@ladynightingale17 Yes, even for the people they are designed for, too many can still kill them.
There's even people who are allergic to potions (like Triss Merigold) who have to rely on other means like magic trinkets
They're also based on alcohol in most cases. This makes a lot of sense because we often use alcohol as a stabilizing agent for volatile compounds. If we accept that we can extract the Essense of Magic Sky Bear from... a magic sky bear's bone marrow I suppose... then it's easy enough to assume mixing it with a high proof alcohol will preserve it for longer and possibly even reduce its potency to tolerable levels.
@ye or maybe nah Otherwise known as Paracelsus' "Alle Dinge sind Gift, und nichts ist ohne Gift; allein die dosis machts, daß ein Ding kein Gift sei." (or in short, Die dosis macht das Gift) :P
WARNING: Do not drink health potion if you have cancer, are pregnant or undead. Speak to a cleric if you have signs of headaches, dizziness, or sore throat.
You jest but I have sitting on my shelf a game suppliment that contains rules for magic use when pregnant it . .. caannn be beneficial for the baby. I wouldn't recommend it though.
or they could limit the ammount that your sappose to drink and not the entire thing like its an actual med. r if u drink too many mana potions it decreeses ur ability to produce natural mana until you can no longer produce it
@Liam Warner
What is this supplement called?
Why cancer and pregnant?
@@heitorpedrodegodoi5646 because it could cause the cancer to rapidly grow, and it can cause issues with the baby.
Shad in the intro: “Fcking kills someone.”
Audience: “Ah, yes, the obvious eloquence of Shad’s vids! Beautiful.”
Fun fact: artificial coloring is often added to liquid reagents in a medical lab so people can quickly discriminate them without reading the label.
The reason for a potion's color could be as simple as that, a manufacturing additive that allows a user to quickly identify the nature of a potion in the middle of a fight.
Smart
Also video game logic. Health bar = Red. Therefore health potion also = Red.
huh, I never knew that. that's actually a really good idea
ahh like ethyl mercaptan
@@dantherpghero2885 It's not really "video game logic", but just traditional color coding. Blood is red, blood has been associated with life since the beginning of written history, so red is associated with life, and so when it comes to representing that something has an effect on health, the color red is a common shorthand that made its way into games.
As for the blue for magic, that's actually more interesting, and I think it has less to do with blue being "magical" than all the other prime colors being taken. Red is already taken. Green is mostly associated with poisons because arsenic, the most common poison in human history, is green. Purple is associated with decay and corruption, because dead bodies turn purple. Yellow and Orange are warning colors in nature, so they probably aren't used because of that association, meaning the only remaining basic color is blue.
“Here you go, potion of cancer”
“Why would they ever make this”
“Because they tried to be smartasses by combining mana and healing potions”
Good for getting rid of pesky family, neighbors, politicians... The list is endless
@@anthonygammel7352 Or you can just snipe someone while he is riding in his motorcade
@@jacobkrout1627 that's a bit more obvious than cancer potion.
"Why would they ever make this?!"
"I know, right? But I think I look cool when I drink them. And I get really ratty if I go for a while without one. (pop) (glug glug glug)"
@@slacknhash originally the doctors said that combining mana and health potions had all sorts of health benefits.
Other games: This plant can be used in the crafting of Healing Potions because it grows near a river where an ancient dragon died and it has absorbed the healing properties of dragon blood while making it safe for humans to consume.
Red Dead Redemption 2: *chugs a galon of moonshine* I'M DRUNK AS HELL AND GOOD AS NEW, BOAH!!!
Meenwhile in Skyrim: Eats 15 wheels of goat cheese between sword swings, healing both cuts and burns.
In stalker drinking vodka removes radiation
Zelda BoTW: just put a Hearty Lizard and any monster part in the same pot and you get a Hearty Elixir.
The diminishing returns thing is kind of already built into most fantasy games. The higher level you get the stronger healing potions you need to restore the same relative percentage of your max health. By the time you reach max level it would take buckets full of the most basic healing potions to fully recover so you have to splurge on the more refined stuff
Well, except for potions that heal x% of max HP
@@NGMK that's why I said most fantasy games, there are of course exceptions that prove the rule
@@gman1515there's other examples as well. For instance PF1e potions might only go up to 3rd level spells, but they still add the *caster level* to the total.
Ergo, if your 10th level alchemist, for example, makes a cure light wounds potion at their full caster level (and considering the price hike for such) it'll be 1d8+10..... Not powerful but cheap and easily produced in shorter time compared to the higher level stuff while remaining reliable. Also consider that said alchemist can spend a week throwing out one of these everyday if he's inclined.
So yeah there's diminished returns but not quite inescapably so.
Oz: "Let's just say it's meta." *looks directly at the camera*
As a pharmacist, I love the more technical side of this discussion. Pharmacology is fascinating, and applying it in a fantasy setting by including adverse effects, drug(potion) interactions, overdoses, and addiction potential would make for a very immersive world. In the real world, genetics also play a part in how people metabolize drugs, who is at risk for side effects, and how effective certain drugs are in certain populations. This could be applied to a fantasy realm as well: certain potions are only effective for certain fantasy races( e.g. not effective for elves but works for dwarves and humans), certain fantasy races are at higher risk for side effects or addiction, etc.
So like a healing potion for a human takes a huge part of their lifespan away, but elves with their long lifespans don’t really care to chug a healing potion because the side effect is little to no effect.
Sometimes a potion of sharp wit is just caffeine
Or mana potions give you the magical equivalent of a hangover. A quick burst now but you won't be able to cast very well later gives a slamming headache etc. More refined and expensive potions can offset this effect but it is never avoided completely.
Something healing you, and giving you a headache makes no sense !
@@liamwarner5749 You might want to take a look at Orconomics: A Satire. Absolutely delightful novel, also covers exactly what you're describing there. The audiobook is good as well.
Dresden files has a great hybrid potion system. Essentially, the potions are a spell delivery system similar to Harry Potter, but the ingredients are tied to the user's beliefs. One ingredient for each sense to help ground the spell that the caster is adding to it. An example would be mixing in a page from a jet engine manual for a potion of speed. The actual ingredient is not making the potion, but the intent behind the ingredient is.
Was wondering when someone was gonna mention the Dresden Files. Jim Butcher did an awesome job creating a believable magic system👌
I love the Dresden Files and that potion system has always been cool to me, I'm kinda disappointed Harry didn't use it more often.
My favorite one is where potions don't have to be drank directly but rather have different effects depending on how they are used like for example a concept I had was a healing potion would work better if you poured it on the wound at a regeneration potion would work far better if you drink it
@@araterlightwolf6964 Salves are a thing, you don't have to limit yourself to fast flowing fluids.
Potions in Harry Potter are NOT a spell delivery system. Snape explains as much in the very first book.
I can imagine a medival knight wearing helm shaped like a soda hat but for potions. And the knight would fight continuously while also chugging down potions in the middle of battle.🤣
Imagine a healing potion that shortens your lifespan because, in order to heal you, it temporarily accelerates your metabolism to repair faster, but the strain from the acceleration ages you more rapidly... so your "miracle healing potion" is a double-edged sword that shortens your lifespan by a small amount every time you use it. In such a setting, it could be seen as reckless to rely on them, or only use them in the most dire of circumstances since only living to be 50 is better than dying right now.
Well that is because our damage systems are often a single dimension, health 100% to 0%.
I had thought of different damage systems such as acute which is like your standard damage and chronic which is you maximum health. In your character's prime may have a maximum health of 750 hp but as stress and chronic damage stack upon aging will drop to 350. Time to Retire.
That reminds me of the combat stimulants the terran maries have in Starcraft. It boost them but also take away 1/4 of their maximum life. I may misremember but I believe that not even the medic unit can heal that damage.
In real life, our cells actually have a sort of genetic fuse that burns down with each cell replication. Unless whatever healing potion you took actually repaired that fuse, it really would cause rapid aging!
In DnD terms, I think most likely your Constitution value will degrade over time due to your body life force draining out from all that accelerated healing.
Another idea could be that healing potions don't immediately heal wounds, but act similar to field medical kits. Coagulants, protective covering, stimulants, and anesthetics that stabilize a wounded person and expedite healing (represented by gaining temporary HP and a slowly filling section of true HP). They're more meant to stop you from bleeding everywhere in a pitched battle, while proper healing magics or first aid will actually heal the wound much sooner (actively knitting flesh and bone together, expediting recovery of lost blood, etc).
I like how Minecraft handles potions. Basically, most alchemical ingredients aren’t inherently magical until they react with a base, nether wart, an ingredient so rare it can often only be found in hell itself.
That's because most systems use a 1 dimensional hit point system.
Watch the CDC Video "Made of Meat" as it discusses health systems in 3 layers, abstract, simplified, and simulation.
@@Marinealver link please? sounds interesting
@@jacksonstarbringer7972 Probably this one. ua-cam.com/video/1nEJOkTjJqk/v-deo.html
NetherWart also only grows on soul sand. Wich implies that magic comes from life itself.
Ya
"Potions as spell storage" is actually how potions work in Dungeons and Dragons. Potions carry the same effects as various spells. Wands and Scrolls also store spells but those still require some knowledge of magic to use. The only requirement for using a potion is the ability to swallow.
Well apparently my ex-girlfriend would not be able to use potions...
@@Schaelarren lmao good one
@@Schaelarren if I get your meaning right then she must be great at casting dragon's breath (where you spit fire) 🔥
@@lillyanneserrelio2187 Well, that's how I picked up the quick-draw feat. So now I can pull my weapon out as a free action. ;)
The "Liquid Luck" potion from Harry Potter actually only effects the user by making him/her do just the right thing in the right moment. So it could be understood to cause a kind of subconscious clairvoyance.
So it is perfectly understandable how this effect can be caused by a potion.
It probably would not help you to win the lottery if you take it after you have chosen the numbers.
Maybe you could convince the person who has the winning numbers to trade them with your own, before those numbers are pulled of course
But Harry Potter world and magic is stupid
The Harry Potter Universe is literally designed to kill you!!!!!
@Copper Dragon yeah, slughorn advertised it as making you successful in whatever you do, but on Harry it sidetracked him from what he originally intended to do and compelled him to do what he'd succeed at.
The effects of liquid luck is pretty much the same as LSD. Minus the visuals. The feeling of euphoria and the effect of events seemingly falling into place perfectly. It doesn't affect the world around the user, it makes the user feel more in tune with the people and world around them.
As far as Estus goes, it's mostly unexplained in Dark Souls, but you can infer a lot from other things in the game. One of the few ways it can be replenished is at a bonfire, so Estus is presumably just bottled fire (the name "Estus" is also very similar to Latin "aestus", which can refer to heat). Fire in the Dark Souls series is very strongly tied to life and energy, so drinking from your Estus flask is the equivalent of drinking life.
Yeah, it's all very inspired by the Phoenix myth, I'm pretty sure Miyasaki self admited that a lot of his stories/ideas are based of the twisted and warped ways he saw mythologies he read as a kid due to them being written in English and him not being fluent.
Also, the characters using Estus are literally Undead that can't even die properly. At least, not until their spirit is crushed, and even then their hollow bodies remain forever. So it makes more sense for them to be able to regenerate from a potion, they're walking corpses.
I was always a big fan of the "healing potions accelerate your body's natural healing" effect. Maybe the drawback is that it makes you hungry; lost body parts do need to be made from material after all. So to heal you have to basically eat a crapload of food, probably more than you would by healing normally because the accelerated healing is inefficient. That could pose problems on a long duration trip like a dungeon delve or long travel.
It would also stop you from downing multiple potions in a row, because the first one left you starving, and there's nothing left to supply the next one until you eat a full meal.
That’s how magic healing works in the Wheel of Time. Wears you out and leaves you starving.
Hungry? No, that'd be an understatement. It would consume your flesh and the waste heat of the change would kill you. Immediately.
And shorten your life span if abused.
Healing potions accelerating your body's natural healing is how it was done in 4th edition dnd, but the change wasn't well received (there was a lot of *irrational* backlash around 4th edition) and they moved away from it in 5th edition.
"What about healing potions that make you urinate a lot or gives you diarrhea?"
There's an excellent channel, the name of which I forget, but the guy did fantastic videos about how stimpaks and radaway would work in Fallout, and considering how the human biology works, the toxins and other stuff that it would be flushing out would go through your excretory system.
Which includes your sweat glands as well, for whatever that's worth.
Yeah you probably get glowing turds after a good course of Rad-Away
iirc the channel's called Shoddycast, but unfortunately the guy moved to the game theory channel
You mean coffee ?
Regarding diminishing returns of potions and similar 'magic' healing: FFG's Star Wars RPG family has 'Stimpacks' that are thematically supposed to be an injectable fusion of bacta (regenerative healing liquid), antibiotics, painkillers, etc. In terms of game mechanics, they function much like healing potions would in a fantasy game. The first stimpack a character uses in a 24 hour period heals 5 wounds (most characters having between 10 and 20 wound points), the second heals 4, the third heals 3, etc. and thus any stimpack beyond the fifth that a character uses in a 24 hour period provides no benefit.
Mechanically, this works well because the limit to healing means that characters will not necessarily try to heal every last wound between encounters. Also, the limit and limitations of the stimpacks mean that the medicine skill is still very useful because, not only does medicine allow further healing of normal wounds, but medicine is one of the only ways to accelerate strain recovery (Strain representing pain, stress, fatigue, etc.) or heal critical injuries, which, not only cause penalties, but cumulatively make each succeeding critical injury more dangerous.
"Let's just say it's meta."
*glances at the camera which is also meta.*
Well played!
Epic NPC man: "Eat it, like a normal person!"
I like how in Warcraft you cannot use a potion if you're at full health/mana. You get an error message and your potion doesn't get accidentally consumed. And for the most part it heals instantly, but not fully.
I immediately pictured that when I saw the title 🤣
Rowan : what do you mean "eat it"?
@@knightmare3706 i dont understand where ya getting lost in this sentence. JUST EAT THE VIAL ! like a normal person!
Mmm... delicious glass.
Imagine feeling the crunch of the vial in your mouth only to suddenly possess heightened senses.
I remember a fan story set in the World of Darkness had healing potions that had the side effect of making you incredible delicious to vampires and werewolves. On the other hand there were potions that made you sick but also turned your blood and flesh incredibly poisonous in order to make you less of a target.
I like the idea of potions as spells in a bottle and the different ways it can be used in a story. And you don't have to be limited by only one, you could have magic plants (plants that need magic to grow and have unique properties) that are used for potions, Harry Potter style or potions that require the magic of a wizard but that have metaphorical ingredients like in the Dresden Files if a love potion need a kiss and a declaration of love, you throw the butt of a cigarette with lipstick and a page of a romance novel into the mix.
Love how this is basically just a conversation of how drugs might function in a fantasy world. We're just using the term "potions" when frankly we should just be calling them drugs (or perhaps potions are a particular class of drugs) if we're building a world where we consider the fundamental properties of them, how they function, and their potential dangers and drawbacks, as these a simply the things that we have to consider when using drugs in the real world. Some real-world drugs (medicinal or otherwise) would even seem pretty magical if we didn't know how they worked.
Yeah, you're right. I'm mostly just thinking how drugs work let's say a theoritical type of drugs we don't have yet IRL😅
In the worldbuilding I'm doing right now, and watching this video for, there's a type of pseudo-plant that can grow just about anywhere, and it's essentially a drug, specifically a stimulant.
I like the way Dungeons and Dragons handles potions, to be honest (perhaps this is in response to other comments). It has it's strengths and limitations. For starters, depending on the potency, it acts like an adrenaline shot mixed with some minor healing properties. It rejuvenates and provides stamina to the individual, while also quickly regenerating some deep cuts or internal bleeding.
On the flip side, and assuming we use the 1 copper piece = 1 dollar methodology, a 50 gp level 1 healing potion costs around $5,000. That's far too expensive for the average individual to use. You have to scrap together your funds early on just to purchase one healing potion. That's where we get into Shad's conundrum of "shall I use this now? Or shall I wait until one of my other party members needs it? Or what if I need it later and I'm on death's door?" Another possibility to add onto that is "What if I'm bleeding out, and our healer is out of spells?"
Potions require specific materials to make, and skilled craftsmen to make them. Potions are usually stocked pretty low, as they take anywhere from a few hours to days just to make a single potion, and the materials come at a hefty price.
All in all, I think these potions are done pretty well. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to down this potion that gives me the strength of a Demigod.
Edit: Regardless of how you view D&D currency (and I do agree that it probably shouldn't be compared to real life), the point I was trying to make is that these potions are rather expensive for the average person, thus limiting them to wealthy folks, and/or limiting their inventory to the commoner.
I like the interpretation that hp is sorta like a second stamina where if you get hit you lose concentration to dodge fatal hits so healing potions help with small wounds and gives you an adrenaline boost
problem is that It's not proportionnal to the level of the user and the same potion behave completly differently depending if you're low level or high level. Its effectiveness should be calculated in percentage of recovery and not be fixed.
In dnd a copper is not equal to $1. Maybe a silver piece would be equal to a dollar? Drinks ank lodging are usually silver, so that sounds more standard. A gold piece is like a large bill 💵 and most people don't have gold. Copper is lesser.
@@nathanbrehm1085 like cents and quarters?
@@airplanes_aren.t_real more so.
in my setting health potions are made out of the blood of creatures that regenerate fast. for example mostly trolls. stronger potions need stronger blood. that is why adventurers and specialized hunters are often very rich but never live for long. also that lead to trolls forming packs, and even communities and later on developed a higher intellect and strategies and they even figured out magic. my point is such a small detail of how the potions work, lead to one of the main plot hooks in my setting.
You could also make it to where the blood can be condensed and "stacked" with more blood to increase the regenerative properties without having to make a bigger potion or having to find stronger beasts
If you want to anchor it more inclined to realism, blood is not a very good option, even because blood cells have no DNA, and the other cells in the blood are at a much lower proportion. Try a liver, that has extremely powerful regenerative properties haha.
The evolution of the troll is an interesting idea. Cities could then regulate how often people can hunt them to attempt to slow their evolution. Then you could have troll poachers. 😏
That seems really fucked up
Drink the troll smoothie, but if you do it too much you can no longer regenerate using other monster smoothies. and you have to stick to troll, but once you've reached this point troll smoothies can regenerate limbs for you. But the new limb is troll-like in appearance.
The addition of anesthesia into healing potions is probably a good idea. This pain blocking aspect would be very important as injuries severe enough to justify the potion are probably excruciating.
Having a spell integrated into a potion is an interesting concept. Spells are usually used by experienced magic particioners. It would require skill, training and alot of time to master. Have your entire life dedicated to said practice in order to become effective in it. But "Magical" potions would be for those who are not trained magicians and could be used by anyone. The only drawback would be that it is a one time use per drink and temporary.
There are potions in the real world with "spells". It's called homeopathy🙃
I do like in Goblin Slayer the 'healing' potion is more or less like an energy drink. It has minor rejuvenating properties, but most of all it reduces fatigue and just dulls pain for a while.
So it's literally just a strong stimulant like meth/cocaine/speed. Funfact: Nazis used a lot of em in WW2
So Basically A Fancy Aspirin?
I have a spell caster who knows how to cast only three spells: he can make things temporarily super sticky once he touches them, he can send little gusts of wind (strong enough to knock a vase off a shelf, and rustle his hair and billow his cloak but not enough to knock someone over), and lastly his most powerful spell is he can create fire. The fire burns about as hot as a lighter or matchstick, but he can create it at distances of hundreds of feet away. Thus, he can cast fireball. All he does is throw a wad of fine sawdust at an enemy, and then boom it explodes. This is how he casts "fireball" and obviously he's a bit more sophisticated that throwing the sawdust. He's basically an alchemist sage other than those three spells, and yet he is the GREATEST WIZARD IN THE LAND due to the way he has used his magic. There's a great scene where someone asks him to use his magic to open a door, and he says no and hires a thief to do it.
That seems really interesting, would be interesting to seem him hire some peasant to empty out bags of flour to set off a dust explosion
@@flyingsheep1539 He does end up blowing up a castle, and he's not a big boy, so he probably did have help
@James McAthey oooooh
Shad: "A potion of sharpness that keeps you awake"
Shad, we already have that. It's called coffee
Any thoughts about the other side of potions? Alchemist fire, poison, or magical c4? If magic warding isn't a thing, but traps with alchemy do, that's a game changer. Personal power may be really good for wizards, but they're limited to a mana pool but alchemists could stockpile a massive amount of chemical weapons.
That is a good point.
Only if there is a long shelf life.
-you drink even if you are almost at full hp.
-You feel a lump in your throat.
-weird but alright.
-your corpse get found later on streets. There is a horrible growth in your throat and mouth. A half empty healing potion lies near you.
i dont get the joke lol
@@alleg0re healing usually means regeneration of cells by them multiplying. HP is full so there is nothing to regenerate. So cells randomly multiply like a cancerous growth and kills the person who drank the healing potion.
In a magical world. The soul is a good concept to have. Insted of heal the body which can cause issues like cancer or not knowing what the missing limb looks like you could have the potions ability as it just reinforces the image of the soul on to the body. Healing you to what your perfectly are.
@ye or maybe nah I always assumed it healed those too but due to lifespan of microorganisms nothing really happens unless you sustain healing over a long period of time
@@applewithsword616 ah ok
"Nanomachines, son!"
MGS2 even had a character whose super-power was being VERY lucky, and she cannonically got it from nanomachines.
Doesn't she also have in situ invertus as well, the condition where an individual's organs are on the opposite orientation to their normal position in the body?
@@Zombiewithabowtie Gave the MGS wiki a check, it doesn't seem to be the case.
@@DarkSoulSama I just checked, and she does have dextrocardia, where the heart is oriented to the right instead of the left.
@@Zombiewithabowtie Yeah, you're right.
So, she deflected bullets with nanomachines, survived a gunshot by being lucky and having dextrocardia, then just used good old magic to deflect RAY's missiles X_X
It gets even more ridiculous in Rising.
HP is often more like stamina rather than one's capacity to accumulate injuries. In that case, health potions are more like energy drinks that give you more energy to keep fighting
That is a common theory, unfortunately the spells seem to directly contradict this: "cure critical wounds" seems like a rather explicit name doesn't it?
There are games that try to address it (the star wars d6 RPG I believe made a distinction, and of course Storytelling does have increasing penalties depending on your health), but overall a game that allows you, at your highest level, to take 20, 50, 100 times the amount of damage that you could take at level 1, and still be in perfect fighting form, is inherently flawed.
Tunnels and Trolls tried to do something about this with their monsters, which had a single score that effectively contained both their health and their fighting proficiency. Problem being, a higher vitality also meant higher damage output and vice versa (so you could not, for instance, make a glass cannon monster), and of course once your monsters started losing they actually lost, since their combat effectiveness went down along with their health.
Which, realistic, but not what you expect from an RPG.
HP are an abstraction, yes, but they are, pretty much unavoidably, a bad abstraction.
Eh, it depends. On a lot of video games HP and stamina are clearly different things
Or they dull the pain. so Laudanum, Cocaine, or other such things.
I've always thought it odd that my character can fight just as well at 1Hp as they could at 10,000 Hp. THen when they get to 0 Hp, they just collapse dead instantly. Should realistically work like a limiter to stamina, instead of a seperate unit of blood concentration. Especially when a human can die from just 40% of their blood being removed, and only has 3.8 litters, while the RPG character can loose more than 100 liters and still run a marathon.
@@Zyvo2 A lot of systems include status effects at HP thresholds, which can also trigger boons (for example, a beastkin race might gain a berserk effect at "bloodied" (~50% HP), as it has now decided that it is fully committed to killing the thing that hurt it. Or a Barbarian might Auto-Rage at a similar point.
A few things I thought of:
1. You could have people in the country with a plant that heals deep cuts in a few days, but the king has alchemists who have a process to make a plant extract that heals the same cuts in just hours. It would be an expensive and time-consuming process, so most people only have access to weaker versions.
2. Healing potions could have the side effect of making your hair grow faster and skin peel because it dramatically accelerates the cell division in your body. This could make the user age faster because the telomeres in their DNA would be shortened a bit with each cell division. It may also lead to mutations of cancers because the cell division is being done so fast, it's less accurate when copying DNA.
3. There would likely be common potions that look very similar, but have very different effects, like water, vodka, and hydrochloric acid. A thief could switch someone's potions pretty easily if they're in generic bottles.
Another idea is that alchemically derived potions don't actively restore wounds, but act as more of a stopgap measure (forming a protective coating, expediting coagulation of blood, containing anesthetic and simulant properties to help the wounded stay alert and conscious despite being injured, etc). Healing magic (whether sealed in a potion or other medium or cast directly) is ACTUALLY healing (knitting flesh, binding bone, restoring blood and regenerating damaged tissue), but takes time to fully work, whereas an alchemical potion can be popped quickly (think something like an adrenaline shot or EpiPen).
There are several benefits to a potion storing a spell, vs simply casting it. Heck, we already see a lot of it in fantasy.
Flamebombs casting fireball wherever the potion is shattered.
Health Potions healing a persons whole body when consumed, (this indicates that healing magic would do the same thing; just not portable/do-able without a healer)
Acid flasks are pretty self explanatory, but also think about flipping them into splash healing potions, or even simply oil/slick splash potions.
The use of portable spells that anyone can cast is incredibly interesting and highly overlooked. So glad Shad is bringing light to it.
It's a bit different but in the anime Goblin Slayer, he commissions an experienced witch to make him a scroll which contains a portal spell to the depths of the ocean, where the water is ultra pressurized. And he uses said scroll during combat with devastatingly effective results.
Maybe potions could be limited to the human body like Shad said, and scrolls to store spells for later use at any chosen moment.
Perhaps there could be archemical*** methods of creating healing potions which use a charge or expenditure of a healing potion, to then hold the spell.
Different healing potion solutions/liquids/etc could have limits on how powerful a spell they could hold, or even have a maximum duration (!!!) associated with them, like a use-by date or best-before date.
There could also be variants that boost/enhance healing rather than provide it itself, like a healing booster shot.
***Archemical, as opposed to alchemical, ar- for arcane/magical.
Flamebombs would be really dangerous. In combat it could break in your pocket, and when it does you burn yourself and die.
@@texanplayer7651
Nothing about that is any more dangerous than having someone around who's mental focus determines whether an AOE bomb goes off at any given moment lol
@@Darith926 An enemy is a danger, no denying this, but carying a weapon that is more likely a danger to yourself than your enemy is suicide. And suicide is always stupid.
The diminishing returns idea for potions is genuinely brilliant! It could be used like lives in a videogame - like the characters only get 3 uses (like 3 lives) and so are terrified when finally faced with the mortality of their potionless life. This could even be used to add a message about the precioussness of life.
The Genesys system has diminishing returns on health potions. You can only ever use 5 in a day
I've just thought about a cool side-effect for potions, it'll be that these potions are magical, they "cast" a sort-off healing spell, but in order to heal they also weaken the users magic energy, because otherwhise the body of the person will reject it, (kinda like the inmune system) this will cause that person to not be able to use magic and becoming weaker.
I don't know, i think is a good idea. 😀
I was convinced it was used in the first Witcher game.
I guess a health potion, in a way, could work by introducing a blood generation stimulant to the body. Like, a compound that increases the bone marrow's ability to create blood cells, therefore speeding up the body's natural healing process.
"Let's talk about potions!"
*[Shows a picture of a knight guzzling Sunny Delight]*
Do you know who that's supposed to be? (genuine question, didn't want to just say in case this is sarcastic)
@@mistahl5350 No idea, but I thought it was funny.
That's a character in Dark Souls, Solaire. I don't know much about him other than he "Praises the Sun." So we now know his favorite drink :P
Two thoughts on why "potion as a spell storage" would be very useful:
- What if the spell you want to cast is so hard and complex, you'd want to store it in its intermediate stage to take a break?
- It could be used by people who can't use magic. Instead of having a dedicated healer (which are vey rare) at your local hospital, you could just store potions made en masse by a single healer. That opens an interesting question of wizards being enslaved specifically to produce said potions around the clock, like people do with cattle.
Log Horizon used the last suggestion. A guild took on many new members by force and farmed them into producing potions that were only available to low level characters as a catch-up measure in the MMORPG. The daily output of potions was exploited by the upper level characters.
It was a sweathouse factory.
@@CaptainFrost32 Great anime!
Another reason is casting time. If a healing spell takes an hour or two to cast, while a potion simply stores and delays the effects until ingested, then it makes sense to create potions in advance.
I imagine that there would be potion manufactories like modern sweat shops although it would depend on how easy it is to create the potions. If you have to be fairly powerful to create them, I don't see many wizards being enslaved easily. On the other hand, if a single wizard could create potions by the tun, it might be a very lucrative business.
The only issue I've really had with potions, especially healing potions, in most fantasy game is that healing is usually reserved as a priestly ability with wizards being unable to cast healing spells. In those world, who actually make healing potions - wizards or priests? Or is it a combined effort requiring them to work in concert?
Why enslave, i mean it would be more efficient to pay the guy people werent enslave to serve as doctors, at most you could say that the demand for potions is soo high that the healers that make them have to work around the clock innbasocally sweatshops they are payed and are technicaly free but it's an insanely hard job
Another idea is to have two types of potion. "True" potions are essentially stored spells, acting near-instantly and actively healing/restoring (and are proportionally more expensive). "Demi" potions are made through alchemical means, and are more akin to field medical supplies (rather than instantly healing a wound, they instead contain coagulants, anesthetics, stimulants, and a coating property that serves as a bandage for healing, and are basically adrenaline/caffeine/amphetamines for mana). They don't immediately recover a person, but they can get a wounded soldier or exhausted mage back on their feet and able to press on until they can get proper recovery it allow the expedited recovery to heal the injury.
There are a lot of diseases that can happen if the immune system’s overactive and for example attack the bodies own cells and organs like asthma, arthritis and lupus. would be a bit grim but could be interesting to see a Heath potion overdose causing that, or a Heath potion being dynamic enough to not be able to help these conditions, say needing a suppressant instead for allergic reactions.
I have M.S. And that's pretty much exactly how it works. Overactive immune system
Like in the Witcher?
first the potion anihilate your immune system, then heal you, and only recreate it last. It would be interesting to gage the power with the complexity of treatments it would do, and maybe even cure heavy curses.
It's never lupus
And don't forget about addiction (addiction to the potion) A.K.A. d**g addiction. And withdrawal will result in death.
A healing potion is just a tormented plant trying to heal itself back to life with it's innate magic as it dies and you drinking it absorb it's healing.
Also, Wouldn't potions have shelf lives?
Nah man I'm sure that potion I found in a 10,000 year old burial crypt held by a dead guy with flies buzzing around him is fine to drink
Harry Potter addressed that idea. Ron drank an out of date love potion in the sixth book and it had an abnormally strong effect, making Ron completely singlemindedly obsessed with this random girl until Professor Slughorn gave him an antidote.
Potions in the Dresden Files expire after a few days. You can't just stockpile a ton of different potions for any situation; you have to anticipate and prepare ahead of time for what you're going up against.
This all gave me an idea recently. A sort of magical glass-like orb which radiates warmth and when you break it, it heals you really quickly for a small amount. The upsides to it would be it's quick for combat use and it doesn't expire, but it would heal less than a potion and then the potions themselves can heal for a lot more, but end up being not as easily usable in combat and can expire.
@@JAGzilla-ur3lh I thought it had a strong effect because he ate a lot of it, not because it gets more potent with time
Early editions of D&D had potion mixing rules. There's a story on youtube about a character who survived a particularly hard fight and then died and killed the party because I drank a healing potion too soon after some other potion, causing a fireball effect inside his stomach. (There's also the explanation that there's different recipes for the same effect, so the result of mixing potions is random every time)
5E does too, but it mostly leaves it up to the DM
A while back, one of the stories i read went into how the protagonist used a healing item. It worked, the wound closed, but he ended up getting sick anyway. The real healer had to cut him back open to clean out the puss and dirt, as well as heal the additional damage.
Imagine getting hit with an arrow, pulling it out, healing yourself, and then walking around with the arrowhead still in your lung along with the bits of cloth and bacteria that it brought in with it.
Hell yeah that's brilliant right there, and it addresses most of the problems that you normally deal with in the real world
To further that, you may need to set-up the wound. If you drink a healing potion with a compound fracture, that thing ain't gonna heal right AT ALL if you don't set the bone properly. So you may still need to set the bone, suture wounds, and so on, or things won't heal right.
Lol I actually used something similar in my story. Someone got some shards of glass into its eye and a novice healer panicked and healed the wound instantly. Now the guy had glass shards cutting its healed eye from the inside all over again, so they had to cut the eye open, remove the glass, clean everything and heal the wound again which caused WAY more pain than if the novice hadn't healed before removing the shards.
**furiously writing in my GM's notes**
Jeeeez. You Zoomers aren't human, are you? You literally don't understand how humans work
cool idea for negitive side efect for healing potions, they speed up your healing by boosting your metabolisim so while your healing super fast your aging faster to, so to heal a wound that would take months, your aging all that time in seconds leaving you weak and hungry but healed of wounds.
That will just will cause cancer
@@pixels_per_minute like hes aged 30 years in like 7 years of being on the frontlines of battle.
@@pixels_per_minute life extending potions. potion of ginko baloma :3
@@naethorn5755 cancer potions are in the back on the left.
Does metabolism actually cause aging? Last time I asked I was given two causes by the same professor which is a doctor btw. One was physical exhaustion… using your body wears it down slowly and that’s why you age. Or the replica of you DNA when it doubles is not 100% the original but it looses some of its genetic code every time it multiplies. I do agree being tired and being hungry would be a good drawback depending on how the potion works. One thing I like about MHA is that they have recovery girl who has the power to accelerated he healing of anyone meaning it is very limited on what it can do yet it can do so much and it tires down the patient. Honestly aside from the fact that humans shouldn’t be capable of doing that in the first place, with the lack of magic in MHA I have to admit it is one of the only realistic powers I have seen in the series and I liked it so this concept has my support on exhaustion being a consequence because of the usage of energy to heal if the potion doesn’t provide anything but accelerated healing. Aging? I am more doubtful of that
in my Minecraft adventure map I'm working on, there are basically 3 different types of potions (complete with a glass bottle economy of sorts), and some of them tie into the Light Force/Life Force system heavily prevalent in the world's setting:
*Life Force/Healing Potions* - they're really just small bottles filled with water on a material level, but that water is there to dilute/contain raw Life Force energy. These types of potions scale from simple spring water (it has residual Force energy from the Earth) and progressively glow redder and brighter as they are filled with Life Force prayers.
It is entirely possible to fill a bottle with so much Life Force that the Force Energy overloads your body and incapacitates you like a blown fuse box.
*All healing potions are either obtained from treasure or created from spring water through prayer.*
*Alcoholic* - Different alcoholic beverages provide different effects based on characteristics commonly attributed to them (most lasting for half an hour):
Cider doubles your Light Force regeneration rate (or allows you to regenerate Light Force if you are not yet able to) as well as improving enemy drop rates (luck).
Ale increases your melee attack power but slows your movements a little bit.
Wine increases you melee attack speed.
Mead slightly reduces incoming damage.
Water Melon Schnapps greatly increases your Will Power recovery rate as well as giving you 1 minute of Life Force regeneration.
*Beverages can either be purchased in a bottle or tapped from a keg using one of your own bottles.*
*Hag's Brews* - The recipes for these are mostly unknown to the players, though each brew has its own characteristics that don't necessarily make sense for their effect. These potions have stronger affects than the beverages, but only last 20 minutes rather than 30 and can't be tapped for free.
Draught of Night bestows Night Vision (your vision goes for a moment as your eyes adjust the the sudden "brightness"), is a Dark Purple color. "A dark, syrupy brew. It has an unusual savory flavor that is rather appealing."
Vial of Protection reduces incoming damage by a greater margin than Mead, is a Royal Blue color. "Strangely tastes like you're drinking liquid rock candy, but not quite as sweet..."
Traveler's Brew restores a decent chunk of Life Force and completely fills your Hunger and Saturation, is an Orange color. "It's a bottle of stew. It's very delicious."
Bottled Courage increases your melee attack power, similar to Ale, but without slowing you down, is a Green color. "Tastes very... green? You feel emboldened, though."
Bubbly Beverage allows you to breathe under water, is a Sky Blue color. "It's practically soda water flavored like local bass... sure..."
Elixir of Striding increases your running speed by a good margin, is a Yellow color. "Has the texture of chicken stew, yet tastes more like bamboo shoots. Guess that means speed somehow..."
World setting has a lot of powerful magic with limitations, ultimately revolving around manifestation through the manipulation of Light Force (often focused using some kind of catalyst).
I was actually expecting this to be on how it would work out when you try to apply say a healing potion in the thick of battle.
Step 1: Place your shield and weapon on the ground so as to have both hands free
Step 2: Get out your healing potion and shake it four times before unscrewing the cap
Step 3: Check that no enemy has killed you before you drink the entire continence in one gulp
Reminds me of my biggest problem with Dungeons & Dragons, how a Cure Light Wounds will only heal a few scratches on high level characters, but the rookies a clean bill of health when otherwise they'd be on the brink of death.
It's because hit points are not directly the same as how many hits you actually take. Hit points going down usually represent your stamina and when it goes too low it means you're too tired and thus exposed to a potential fatal blow. High level characters just have superhuman stamina so giving them a bit of a typical human's stamina is only rly a tiny fraction of their superhuman reserves.
They need stronger potions because they're like an addict; they've used so many potions that they need the bigger stronger hit to get the same effect.
Yeah that's a huge issue that I think Cogent deals with pretty well.
@@trappyboi8678 The point still stands, only even more pronounced then. Why is it that my Cure Light Wounds bring some people back from the brink of death, and others only make them slightly less tired? Once these superhumans get to -1 I can heal that potential lethal injury just fine, but until then it's just papercuts. There's also no explanation for how these superhumans are superhuman, especially when they aren't inherently magical in nature.
That's why potions should heal a percentage.
Let's say 25%, 50%, and 100% (and maybe a really small 10%)
A game called Elona Rpg had a cool "potion addiction" condition.
It basically just made your char drink random potions from their inventory. Which was super annoying, because
A) In the game you'd often find toxic potions whose intended use was just to be thrown at enemies as a weapon, so drinking them could hurt you badly
B) Because some potions could be really valuable and expensive, so your char drinking them on a whim when they didn't benefit him was super annoying.
So generally, you'd really want to solve that as soon as possible.
Lol, rofl
I like the idea of healing potions being extremely painful to use as you heal all at once. This would put a built-in dampener on health potion use.
Fantastic intro! 😂👍
Film theory had a hilarious calculation of the calories a Fallout Stimpak would need to inject in order to instantly heal a subject from near fatal wounds in a technologic, non-magical setting.
All right, let's analyze this one.
So, health potions in fiction can be divided into two categories: HP potions, and regenerative potions.
The first category is the de facto type in all RPGs, be they the tabletop or the computer variety, and they work by interacting with the systems governing damage simulation. A health point system is an enormous bugbear in and of itself, so let's ignore how unrealistic it is. It exists to abstract damage and turn combat into something math and dice can meaningfully interact with, and leave it at at.
So, in these systems, HP is representing how much damage a character can take, and most often than not it is entirely decoupled from the other debilitating effects of a fight with deadly instruments. In turn, health potions simply restore this number, and that's about it.
This kind of health potion is also really common in LitRPG settings, where either a fantasy world has a built-in magical system mimicking a modern CRPG, or in the case of VRMMO stories, it's an actual game system within the setting. The thing that has to be considered here is that, more often than not, there is some kind of system in place to maintain body integrity. In reality, getting stabbed by a sword in the stomach is something that takes you out of the fight, but in these settings, it would simply result in losing, say, 6k HP out of 30k, and maybe it would cause some status effect. However, as far as the "injured" person's body is concerned, they wouldn't get disemboweled, get their muscles torn, or even their skin broken, because the system keeps up their body integrity until they reach 0 HP. Because of this, consuming an HP potion or receiving healing magic simply replenishes this "allowance", and wouldn't cause any biological effects, as their body stays intact until they reach 0 HP.
The other kind is the regenerative potion, though it's a distinction that's rarely made in-universe. This is much more common in more grounded fantasy settings, where getting stabbed in the gut actually means that an actual sword is lodged in your actual gut, with all the nasty stuff involved in the process. Now, healing potions in these settings generally work by rapidly regenerating wounds and restoring stamina. As for how that works, there are generally two ways it can happen.
In soft magic settings, the potion doesn't as much "heal" than "rewind the injury". All the damaged and displaced tissues would return to their original place, all the missing blood would be replenished out of thin air, and there would be no trauma left, allowing the combatant to go back into the fray at once.
In hard magic settings, the potion would only speed up the recovery, and it would often result in extensive scarring and/or loss of stamina, and it would require some recuperation time after that. Loss of fingers, limbs, or other body parts is also generally beyond the abilities of potions to cure.
In either case, there's an unspoken premise that is rarely addressed, namely that somehow the recipient's body has a "platonic state" where it would be returned by the potion. In a sense, that kind of already exists in biology, and that's why scar tissue won't grow indefinitely after you cut your hand, but it's also the reason why you cannot grow back lost fingers; there are clear limits to the body's self-healing capabilities, which potions, even the hard magic kinds, often ignore.
At the end of the day, what potions can or cannot do is still up to the writer, and the most important thing to consider is never "does this make biological sense", but "is the capability and mechanics of the potion consistent in-universe".
and "does it contribute to an interesting story"
Bravo, a fine read!
In the Wheel of Time series, magical healing is much more comparable to surgery, requiring actual medical knowledge from the healer, lest the patient be killed through anatomical ignorance, regardless of the actual power level of the magic user. There aren't any actual magic potions in the series (herbalism is much more of a traditional medicine); but, there are essentially magical items that serve as a sort of lost high technology/magic hybrid.
One method I see being used is replacing "Health" with "Stamina"
Instead of being hit, you are receiving minor wounds and getting tired of dodging. If your stamina reaches 0, you are too exhausted to keep fighting.
In this case, a healing potion would be anything that gives you energy, like caffeine!
Rampant health potion use leading to addiction expert apothecaries say.
Common side effects include narcolepsy, headaches, fevers, chills, enlarged heart, and uncontrollable shaking.
Apothecaries warn of healing potion overdosing that can lead to heart failure. Please confer with your apothecary before beginning a health potion regiment.
This telepathic broadcast brought to you by healers of fantasy world. Stay safe!
I like that idea better because it is you're endurance that determines how effective you are as a fighter and how long you can stay in a fight. I can imagine the fighter, barbarian and cleric holding the line, using their strength with shields while the magic-user, archer and other casters support from a distance, conserving some of their endurance, and the thief or rogue like character classes deal the deadly blows from the flanks or even from between the legs of their comrades. A sharp blade, behind the Achilles's tendon or up into the groin while their attention is on your fighters.
This. I like to think of general, unlocalized Game Health as less of a 1:1 to blood/tissue damage, and more of a way to quantify the "likelihood to resist death [as a check against the current action]." (Which I guess is just another definition of health... but from a different approach...). So kind of a mix between stamina and luck/probability.
Oh wow it's almost like the literal first edition of D&D had this as a canonical rule from release
Really great video. One of the best ive seen from you shad!
This is a really fascinating topic I've been thinking about for my writing projects, and I really enjoyed all the points you brought up!
I always liked how Tensura handled their healing potions (minor Spoilers for the LN)
First off: The world runs of Magicules, which are basically the magic equivalent to atoms and they are (in universe) known to bend or straight up ignore the laws of physics
Health potions are distilled from a magical Herp which, turns out, is just your run of the mill herb mutated by a high magicule concentration.
The strength of the potion is purely based on its purity, ranging anywhere from healing small cuts, to restoring the entire body, as long as its still alive.
The way this is explained, is that the potion basically "reads" the DNA of the target and uses up the magicules to recreate the missing tissue.
Its definitely a lot of "its magic, deal with it" but it still makes sense based on the things we know about the setting. Also, AFAIK there are no other potions other than healing ones.
in tensura its normall that there is only healing potions since the world is based on skills and not on magic pool.
Damn. I like that but I'm odded out that there's only healing.
The balance of Tenshura is also very anime, although that’s not necessarily a bad thing. A single creature being able to easily obliterate countries
Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn Trilogy's potions are really interesting. He did a really good job explaining the mechanics of the magic / potions for his world.
Also as a quick aside, using D&D as a reference, storing spells in a potion allows non-magical users use of said magic. Thus it could be sold as a commodity.
Yeah the potions arised incredibly naturally in Mistborn, (without writing a whole book about herbalists, witchcraft or Snape), that was one of the better hard fantasy things about it compared to much of the rest reading like the rules of an RPG. They were simply the most effective way to ingest metal (e.g. in a colloidal suspension). A well chosen liquid medium would inhibit corrosion too. I haven't checked, but that's probably true in the real world too.
You mean metal shavings suspended in alcohol ? Because that's not really an potion. That's more like a simple ammo for inborn magic power
Storing a spell in a potion also could allow the caster to go about the process of creating the spell at a more opportune time. Maybe a mage has access to a limited amount of magical "oomph" at any given time (mana, spell slots, whatever) and expending it up front means they can have more total stored when they actually need it, sort of like how they used crystals in Eragon. Alternatively, it may be a time-consuming process or require concentration, making spellcasting less than ideal in a battle or other crisis.
@@VanDy361 Makes me wonder if they're actually talking about the potions in the Stormlight Archive, which takes place in the same universe, but not on the same planet.
@@akl2k7 there's no magic potion at all in stormlight
I love your videos! Thank you for the great content. Hope you have a great day Shad.
I love your editor Shad... those pictures showing you first real plants with effects you describe and then real potions with the text "All these potions exist Shad...". Priceless!
One example that I liked is the approach on potions in The Wandering Inn: Healing potions increase the regeneration rate of all organisms by a magical means. Applications may be oral or topical, and effect the tissue they have first contact with.
This also makes healing potions totally DEADLY if you are suffering from an infectious disease or if your wounds have already festered: because the bacteria are also organisms and quickly reproduce enough to rot off your limbs, hyperbolically speaking, while your immune system also gets the boost but is starting from the weaker position.
So far, the effect on cancer has not yet been a topic in the novels, but you can imagine it's not great. And also, the setting has a deminishing effect of too many potions, because a body needs time+energy to recover from the healing boost.
I know that Harry Potter has a very soft magic system, but I do have a theory about the luck potion. In the books it says that Harry had the feeling the potion was guiding him after he ingested it. He simpley knew what to say to certain people to convince them. A luck potion might simply improve your perception, creativity and improvisational skills for a limited amount of time. If something makes you more socially abt by stimulating certain qualities you have, it might feel like the potion is making you lucky.
I thought it would be something like good ol Irish Luck. Messes with your brain *just* right to get you on the right track mentally.
In both the book and movie I think it also improves the chance of good luck, on his way to hagrid's hut he encounters slugwurth, the person he needs to get the memory from to learn about the horcruqes
My theory is that it made Harry have a limited, temporary, Seer ability, that made him see what would be the best course of action and best things to say to achieve his goal.
Correct me if I’m wrong because my memory is a bit hazy, but when Harry drinks the potion, he gets a gut feeling that he should go down to Hagrid. He doesn’t even that he would meet Slughorn on the way, and if I remember correctly, he doesn’t even know that Hagrid’s spider is dead. And I’m no genius, but I’m pretty sure that no matter how perceive and creative you are, you would not be able to predict that Slughorn was in the area, and that Hagrid’s spider was dead, and that it’s poison would be valuable to Slughorn, and get him into a better mood.
And another thing I faintly remember, was at the closing parts of book six. Before the Death Eaters break in, Harry gives his friends the rest of liquid luck to protect them. After the battle, his friends then describe to him how every spell and curse the enemy cast just miraculously missed them. Does higher perception and creativity repel magic?
Again, correct me if I’m wrong
@@myre36 Yeah, that's why I think the Felix works by giving prophetic feeling to the drinker, Harry has a "prophecy" that he feels as a gut feeling to go Aragog's funeral (Hagrid sent a letter, but because of the last time Harry and Ron met Aragog, they feel that would be going to far in humoring Hagrid), and a a "prophecy" that he feels as a gut feeling to reveal himself to Slughorn. His friends' experience could be explained by a "prophecy" that they feel as a gut feeling to position themselves in a way that the curses will miss.
My friends and I talked about this very thing a year ago. One of them used her medical background to create a healing potion that
1. Was made with an opioid like plant.
2. Was highly effective at pain nullification/healing physical damage.
3. Was highly addictive.
4. If used too much, the body would build up a natural resistance to it, leading to it requiring more of it to heal.
We thought this was such a good idea that we all use it now for all our games.
That opening was PERFECT! Keep it up shad!
I think you'd like how the Ethshar series handles potions. They are limited to spells that effect you directly (as contrasted to magic powders, which can contain certain external spells) and are shown to take a long time to brew and include casting the desired spell 'into' the potion/powder, all of which takes its own rare and expensive ingredients, but it's kept relevant because magic (particularly wizardry) requires delicate and often time-consuming rituals with only two limited and fairly undesirable ways to load them up internally into 'spell slots'. These are also the main way that non-wizards are able to gain access to magic, by buying the relevant potion or powder and taking it with them if they need it.
I think a mix of Alchemy and Spellcasting can also be interesting, making it following a brewing recipe and casting spells or using magical energy at the required times to make that healing potion. Then it requires both the plants/shrooms/whatever else and the magical energy provided to be able to heal someone, making them still rare and expensive
The "He who fights with monsters" series by Shirtaloon has a mechanic where potions have a cooldown time. If you use another too soon, it could kill you. I like the way this limits things.
They also have this in Terraria, one of my favorite videogames. There is a 1 minute timer after you take a healing potion. During the cooldown, you can't take any more healing potions. I think there ae accessories that can reduce the cooldown, though.
12:34 min
They made that "joke" in the game The Book of Unwritten Tales 2. There is an Alchemist Rat that says, she never makes healing potions because of how addictive they are. First it's just your regular healing potion, then they want a greater one, then a superior, and in no time they demand supreme healing potions all the time.
On the effects of drinking a healing potion while at full health, since they are of regenerative nature, maybe a side effect could be, that one "explodes" into a cloud of dust from all the skin that regenerates.
In the setting I'm working on, healing potions are a relatively new invention. They are created alchemically out of things like plants, that show a supportive effect in healing, and are destilled into this concoction, that heals within seconds. But it's not "magically", the potion mostly kicks the bodys own regenerative capabilities into a higher gear. It heals you, but the more potions you use, the less effective are they, because they exhaust the bodys resources. Another effect is, that you could end up with potion poisoning.
I kinda liked how Breath of the Wild did potions.
Certain animals, herbs and the like have certain magical properties, and cooking them with monster parts distills that property into a potion. If you use more items with the same property, you intensify the effect, but if you combine them, they cancel out.
NPC's sometimes talk about how they make and use potions themselves, and the general application and recipes for them are well known, although some ingredients are hard to come by.
Granted, the system is a bit to gameable, so it feels a lot more flat than it should. But with a few tweaks it is a ruleset for potion brewing that makes a lot of sense.
The idea of cancer and potions sounds interesting enough to be included in the setting. I now have certain groups of people who are "allergic" to healing potions and forms of magical healing that are weaker than Greater Restoration. Each use of such potions will have a chance to be the last in their life. You can get around this problem if you use "external application" - compresses, bandages soaked in potion, just pour the potion on the wounds. This will reduce the chance of sudden death, but the effectiveness of treatment may be affected. And applying a compress is definitely not the type of action that can be quickly cranked during a battle.
you have the perfect example in tensei slime that boost eveything even diseases and can kill you instead of healing, and it can be solved by just removing the problematic part and then restoring the entire body.
Applying a bandage impregnated with the healing potion to an open wound could likely get some of it into the bloodstream anyway, making it absolutely not a painless alternative but definitely better than a bad case of Bleedtodeathitis
@@Izunundara assuming that healing potinon works in a couple of seconds, wound may close fast enough to prevent at least most of the potion to entering bloodstream. But yes, even if it enters bloodstream and cause violent cancer growth, it is better than dying in a couple of hours from Bleedtodeathitis
Triss in the Witcher Saga (not in the games... well not W1 anyway) is one of only mages who not only can get sick, but she's also allergic to potions so she has a nasty bought of dysentery.
@@Izunundara of course then you get into the fact that we already have coagulant medicines in nature so there wouldn't be much advantage of using the more arcane potion for that.
I really do love the way you introduce side effects on potions. Love you Shad!
Interesting as always, good Ideas for potions and the effects
The Spell through materials is the potion system of the Elder Scrolls.
It also connects well to its magic system. Basically all of Lorkhans bullshiterry used to create the world from other gods made the natural components of the world capable of absorbing and radiating magic.
I keep forgetting that the Elder Scrolls is canonically a fever dream.
@@YataTheFifteenth It's a brilliant explanation for the "features" that is sometimes exhibits.
9:55 In one of my favorite games, Potion Craft, there are potions of Lightning, Fire, and Explosions, and you can tell mire accurately what they do in that game based on the requests. A miner comes in cause they've come across a patch of tougher stone, wanting an explosion potion, or another guy comes in that wants to drop something into a den of monsters, and a fire potion works for him. Sometimes someone wants to cross a deep river, and offering them a levitation potion works, or offering them an ice potion.
"Potion Craft: Alchemy simulator" is a great game that offers an amazing representation of what fantasy brewing might look like, with a pot over coals that you can pump the bellows for, a stirring spoon, a water pourer for dilution, and even a larger alchemy setup for making ingredients that help you brew easier.
16:00 Thinking of Curse of Silverthorn during the making of this video? Lol
Excellent series, by the way!
In my pet setting, there are two kinds of 'potion'.
Alchemical potions twist your aura, mimicking what a mage would do to cast a spell - it basically forces you to cast a spell on yourself. This is a efficient use of resources, because normal people have mana they're not using, but limited, because many spells requires knowledge and skill from the caster. A fighter won't know which areas to prioritize healing for - they don't even know they're casting a spell.
The neat part is that overdosing on a potion can lead to your aura getting stuck like that, with various consequences, good or bad.
Spirit potions on the other hand literally contain spirit constructs tasked to cast a spell when triggered. Having a quasi-sapient agent directing the spell makes it much more precise. But that's also pretty exclusive, since it can pretty much only be done by Deities through their priests. Plus, holy items might have restrictions or additional effects depending on the Deity involved.
And remember not to clink the glass - it'll drive out the spirits!
14:20: Potions with diminishing returns, because I needed yet another reason to never use that massive stack of consumables clogging up my inventory.
Shad is the fantasy incarnation of the phrase "See what everyone has seen and think what nobody has thought". Paraphrased from a Vsauce2 video, the one about Vitamin C.
One video game dealt with diminishing effectivity healing items that I can recall. It was Boiling Point's healing injections that each time they were used raised your character's medicine resistance stat and if it got high then even the stronger injections would barely heal any damage. This stat could be reset in town in the doctor's office for a relatively hefty fee though, making healing items less and less effective as battles/expeditions got longer and putting a dent in your funds if you weren't careful enough.
these intro bits are great, keep them up!
Shad, could you review the weapons of the Fate series? You'll have a field day.
That would be impossible since fate weapons are mostly pure fantasy while Shad mostly does weapons that have some sort of realism behind it, or he argues about weapons looking very stupid but that would be cool because im a huge fate fan. im actually a writer myself and people dont know this but i create medieval historical fiction books with characters that are inspired by fate for example the main character is based on Shirou or Inspired by Shirou and theirs also another character inspired by Jeanne D'Arc and theirs another character inspired by Saber and theirs another one inspired by Modred. But even though the characters are inspired by these characters, im trying to make the most historically accurate book ever made with info that you probably will never ever find in any history book its that awesome!!
@@thepokemontrainer6094 I don't think so. Artoria's Sword, Cu's Lance, Emiya's twin blades, Sasaki's katana, Iskandar's short sword, and of course Gilgamesh's Ea, all more realistic than say... that three-blased sword
@@MegaPokefan97 Artoria sword is the size of a fucking torpedo how is that realistic and I’ve seen all fate anime and read the light novels and played the games and none of it is realistic or to me at least. I’m taking about weapons where you stab people to death not slice them because stabbing is mostly affective since you can kill someone easily.
Can you do a video about “two in one weapons”? Like a sword that can divide into two swords-one left handed and one handed-like in Zorro? And in Avatar: The Last Airbender, Zuko used “dueling swords. Two blades made from the same whole.” It’s two swords that fit together and function as a single two handed sword or can be used one in each hand.
I’ve also seen reproduction swords where the grip is actually a dagger that can be pulled out.
Also weapons with hidden mechanisms inside. Like a sword with a poison compartment in the pommel or blade.
sword canes too! Love those things
I've always liked the idea of a damascus pattern knife that's actually two knives where the patterns fit perpectly inside each other. So it goes from a double edged pattern knife to two single edged knives.
Who needs two weapons, when you have two shields?
So I was the only one who thought about Dar's staff from the Beastmaster series?
I agree with the two in one sword. Shad definitely needs to cover that topic. Skeletor from He-man 2002 also did this.
Great video as ever Shad! I love your channel for all the excellent worldbuilding and storytelling perspectives. Still, there is something we have yet to see from you that I would really love to see your take on: Bards; Namely their historical origins, their role in fantasy and how one might implement them in writing. I know more than a few stories about music on battlefields, but not so much about how one could implement them in storytelling. Is that a video you plan on doing? Because if you already have done one, I couldn't find it on your channel.
Excellent video! I hope in the near future you cover Dune and the re-emergence of edged weapons as a result of shielding technology
The health potions can be scientifically explained, they send your metabolism into overdrive healing all wounds.
Magic potions are a little harder to explain because there’s no scientific basis in our reality as well as no one description of what source is used to cast magic, in some fantasy casting magic consumes stamina while in others it’s the life force, the stamina example makes more sense as it would explain why if magic users cast too much they suffer from exhaustion
Can you imagine how ravenously hungry you’d be if you healed from a potion from “slashed open by dragons” to “good to go fight a giant”? 🤣 it’d be like a DBZ meal scene.
@@Dvergenlied would explain why in Skyrim the dragon born carries so much food, plus we can’t really judge their biology based on ours (cheap excuse I know but it’s true) and it is possible that the health potions also provide the necessary nourishment to counter the hyper hunger that it’s consumer will suffer from, there are beverages in our world that do exactly that such as protein shakes and technically soup is a beverage so again it is scientifically explainable
Basically there has to be an outside source of energy fulling the healing as a body can only muster certain amount of nutrients to heal wounds, that would be the "magical" thing helping
@ye or maybe nah again going back to the stamina example there are beverages in our world that do restore some level of energy when we are exhausted such as energy drinks and water, in all likelihood the MP potions don’t actually restore mana but rather they make the consumer think it does similar to pain killers, I believe it’s called the placebo effect
In jujitsu no kaisen they healing is based on your soul. The shape of you soul is you with no injury. So when you cast heal it reinforces the soul on the body.
"Most wizards don't have an ounce of logic." A throw away line from the first book that I think explains a lot about the wizarding world. Felix Felicis is probably a misnomer for what should actually be a potion of precognition of sorts and the confidence that comes as a result of it, and we know that true divination is a thing in the Harry Potter universe, though you could argue that the prophecies we see come true are self-fulfilling. Harry might not know exactly how going on a walk will eventually lead to getting the memory he needs from Slughorn, but in a sense, he knows that it will so long as he does it. The same could be said of the DA members in the climax. The Death Eaters' spells weren't just missing them; they knew were to be for the spells to miss, like Nicholas Cage dodging bullets in Next.
Indeed luck is an odd concept to begin with. Makes much more sense that your just predicting the optimal path rather than the world around you bending to your will. It would have basically the same effect/result after all.
BEEN WAITING FOR THIS ONE FOR SO LONG OMG
When shad mentioned the healing potions possibly giving cancer, it was actually an idea for a character in my story, they are a healer/Assassin, so while they do their job on healing, they also can use the healing to over heal a target giving them all types of cancer and getting off the hook since their target " Died of natural causes ". The reason I though oh this a while back was because one of my family members works in the medical field, so they taught me what cancer actually is, I'm glad shad mentioned it, it show how creative he can really be.
Potion of flight: Red Bull energy drink
Potion of endurance? Monster energy drink.
Potion of strength: Liquid meth.
And job's a goodun!
Monster would probably be more of a potion of alertness or haste
Potion of strength: Protein shake
Potion of bravery: Jagermeister
Given that time magic exists in Harry Potter, my interpretation of liquid luck is that it gives a form of unconscious precognition and helps guide you to what you would consider 'better' outcomes.
What I always thought would be interesting is the fact that healing potions that would presumably be able to give the player extreme vasoconstriction, angiogenesis, and thrombosis formation could also be negatively effected when the player is fully healed, as if the potions makes platelets clot much faster causing a massive thrombus to form inside the veins/artories, where it travels to the lungs and kills you like a Cork blocking the pulmonary veins. Where it might have a similar effect to deep vein thrombosis.
A way some potions like the liquid luck could work:
-The enchantment is cast upon the liquid, sort of like one would enchant a sword or armor
-Once drunk, the potion spreads through the body via metabolism, applying the effect
-The power of the potion would wane as the liquid leaves the body
Luck potion in Harry Potter is not luck. It just gives you confidence.
The luck part is literally just belief
I might be wrong because my memory is a bit hazy, so correct me if I’m wrong, but in the final portion of the sixth book, Harry gives his friends the last bit of liquid luck he had, to protect them from the Death Eaters. And afterwards, his friends described to him that all the spells the enemies cast miraculously missed them. So did their confidence just repel those spells?
And even earlier, when Harry was trying to get Slughorn to give him the memory, was it Harry’s confidence that told him to go down to Hagrid, even if he had no idea that the big spider died? And when on his way, he just happened to run into Slughorn, who just happened to follow Harry and just so happened to be interested in the spider’s venom, which brought him into a better mood, and therefore it would be easier to get the memory out of him? Was it confidence that caused all of these coincidences? Seems more like luck to me.
Again, correct me if I’m wrong
@@myre36 The simplest example to it just being an unnaturally powerful confidence boost is Ron. During the course of one of the later books, Ron is on the Gryffindor quiddich team. Ron's very nervous about a big game, and Harry tricks him into thinking he spiked his orange juice with lucky gold syrup. Then Ron crushes it. I'd say a confidence boost can easily explain the repulsion of spells. When you're more confident, you're less likely to hesitate. The deatheaters are evil, and are rather used to using fear to control their enemies. With unrivalled confidence, I can see it as supremely easy to out maneuver their muscle memory. It's like mind games in any high speed videogame. If your opponent is used to fighting on a specific skill level, they get crossed up by players who are really bad in comparison to them, or really good in comparison to them - simply by virtue of not being used to that playstyle.
@@necroseus I think that explanation runs counter to the setting. Harry potter is a setting where magic has literal time travel, potions turning you into whatever you want, and the ability to kill people with bad latin. Removing magic from the potion of lucky doesn't make sense in that context.
@@necroseus um your forgetting the fact that ron didnt actually have any potion so what he did has nothing to do with what the potion is. when we actually see the potion its very clearly luck.
Potion seller, I am going in to battle and I want your strongest potions.
...
...
You can't handle my potions, they are too strong for you.
love that video XD
On a more serious note, as a DM I truly appreciate theory crafting videos like these. Incorporating some of the ideas you present makes my worlds much more vibrant and grounded, which assists my players with their willing suspension of disbelief. Thanks Shad!
Hey Shad, it might be interesting to see you analyze on corridor crew's attempt to create a realistic Light saber duel.
Setting up a potion shop in between quest points seems like a great idea, until you find out that the shop keep ran out of potions because of all the times heroes ran away from monsters, inadvertently luring those monsters back to the shop keep.
Alchemy was the beginnings of chemistry, but there was still a lot of 'magic' that was a part of it (incantations, diagrams drawn out, etc.). So in the fantasy setting, potions would be a mix of ingredients and magic as a catalyst.
I dont know why but that part when Shad chopped up his friends head made me laugh so badly i know its brutal but still the way he did it was so hilarious. Because its so true because this is real life not a video game get it?
I don't get it. Please explain.
@@benis3551 because you die in real life you don’t have a health bar
Magical Potions can be done in 3 ways:
1) the magic is in the special magical ingredients you use to brew it. that requires the world to be filled with magic. that results in places with exotic rules of reality - and everything that grows there gets mutated or evolves to reflect the new reality. be it flora or fauna. and so by mixing various ingredients u can distill or cook yourself a nice magic potion of whatever u need. (see Harry Potter for examples) here it might be good to conciser concentrations / allergies / mixing of potions . all that could have varied results
2) the ingredients more or less dont matter, cuz the magic is in the brewer. u get water, infuse it with so much of specifically shaped magic as u need and get a magic potion that way. ingredients act then as catalysts or foci to transform the brewers personal magic into specific spells. here the mixing of different potions is less of an issue, cuz potions are just liquid spells
3) a mix of the above.
--
in all of these the effects last as long as the magic in the potion permits. kinda like batteries. adjust the concentration accordingly.
since its magic u might be able to build in a fail-safe from overdosing by inducing vomiting of the leftover potions when the continuation of the potion would be undesirable
or in case of poisons the opposite.
There is a fourth then. The components are not inherently magical but the combination of them, and how they are treated, is essentially a spell. The ingredients then matter because they are the spell. Think of mistletoe being "abra", cocoa beans being "kadabra" and Mercury being the "alakazam". Time and place, along with other factors, could also be aspects that alter what each symbol means to the spell/potion.
This would be my preferable explaination. Actual historical alchemy was very deeply symbolic and mainly focused on using this symbolism for something. For instance, the old "turn lead into gold" thing was most likely a metaphor, as lead was symbolically the most impure metal, while gold was the most pure. This was a lot more complicated, but that's the gist. Think of reality as a programme written in a higly symbolic code and alchemy as the science/art of finding exploits.
So in fantasyrealm it might not be impossible that some plants or minerals are symbolically linked to primal elements, some universal forces or others and by proper procedures you can hijack and manipulate this connection. The actual chemical make-up of such a potion needs not make sense if it has enough symbolic sense, for example flight potion composed of windflower and dandelion. (cause WINDflower and dandelion's light, floating seeds)
Awesome video!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm super interested in the way I write potions in my writing, and one thing I didn't consider going into detail about is what happens if you mix potions? Or intake two different potions within the same time period? Very good points you have brought up, Sir.