TOPIC: Potion Bull's Strength question

How long does a Potion Bull's Strength last? If it lasts for an entire room, then drinking one as a free action at combat start using Pants of Retrieval seems a quite affordable way to get +4 strength.

Andy Strassmann wrote: How long does a Potion Bull's Strength last? If it lasts for an entire room, then drinking one as a free action at combat start using Pants of Retrieval seems a quite affordable way to get +4 strength.

It does last one entire room.

"Affordable" is definitely relative. Drinking one in the way you describe definitely requires both the pants slot and 3 or 4 extra tokens, which would amount to almost half of an Alchemist's ink, or the coat of the tokens.

Ultimately many choose to do as you do, but if you're going to go that route, consider
tokendb.com/token/pouch-of-tulz/

Andy Strassmann wrote: How long does a Potion Bull's Strength last?

from page 12 of the Player's Handbook :
Unless specifically stated otherwise--no matter what the source is--all "buff" or "debuff" effects last until the end of the room.

Wade Schwendemann wrote:

Andy Strassmann wrote: How long does a Potion Bull's Strength last? If it lasts for an entire room, then drinking one as a free action at combat start using Pants of Retrieval seems a quite affordable way to get +4 strength.

It does last one entire room.

"Affordable" is definitely relative. Drinking one in the way you describe definitely requires both the pants slot and 3 or 4 extra tokens, which would amount to almost half of an Alchemist's ink, or the coat of the tokens.

Ultimately many choose to do as you do, but if you're going to go that route, consider
tokendb.com/token/pouch-of-tulz/

Beyond the cost and the slot, there is also hoping the DM remembers to add your +2/+2. We are going to try str buffs on our Barbarian this year and see how it goes. If it goes well, we may have all the melee players drink potions in 2021 during buff rounds

In my experience, DMs are very receptive to the first "did you remember the +2?,"
Whether for a hit or damage.

As we all know, there is a LOT going on in a combat room, and it is easy to miss an individual bonus.

More than one of those does get annoying quickly.

Wade Schwendemann wrote: In my experience, DMs are very receptive to the first "did you remember the +2?,"
Whether for a hit or damage.

As we all know, there is a LOT going on in a combat room, and it is easy to miss an individual bonus.

More than one of those does get annoying quickly.

Protip: try to bring it up while the DM is not in the midst of someone casting a spell or otherwise taking up their focus. And as always, stay polite in your tone of voice.

Fiddy wrote: And as always, stay polite in your tone of voice.

Goodness, this would be a wonderful thing for the (TD)World!

One thing not yet mentioned is this will burn your free action for that round. Might not seem like much initially but could matter. Many things require a free action to trigger and you only get 1 per round.

Interesting points -- thank you! So it sounds like the consensus is that I *can* do it, and there definitely is a cost, but the critical question that I had not considered (thanks Wade) is whether I really want to be regularly reminding the DM to remember my non-party-card buff when the other fighters in the party are trying to shave fractional seconds off their slide-and-scoots. Thinking about what sort of experience I want to have and want my friends to have, I think we'd have more fun with a fast smooth fight than a maximize-my-personal-points-per-hit fight. But Endgame, if you have any lessons-learned after your experiment I'd love to hear them.

That sounds like exactly the right line of thinking to me.

I would love to run with you sometime, and I'll supply the 3-4 Bull's Strength for you.

Andy Strassmann wrote: But Endgame, if you have any lessons-learned after your experiment I'd love to hear them.

I’ll post my after adventure experience for sure! We figured that by giving the Barbarian the portion during the one buff round you get occasionally during an adventure, we weren’t making the DMs life difficult for most combats. Additionally, since the Barbarian is already using rage, we aren’t asking for more than one character with a “special” modifier. Now the dm just has to remember +2 hit / +8 damage instead of just +6 damage.

Andy Strassmann wrote: Interesting points -- thank you! So it sounds like the consensus is that I *can* do it, and there definitely is a cost, but the critical question that I had not considered (thanks Wade) is whether I really want to be regularly reminding the DM to remember my non-party-card buff when the other fighters in the party are trying to shave fractional seconds off their slide-and-scoots.

A good DM writes all such bonuses from bard song and potions on the combat board. All DMs are trained to do that, and almost all DMs do.

If they seem a little flustered trying to juggle too many numbers in their head, then you can do as Wade suggests. If they wrote it down you probably don’t have to remind them.