How many potion cards should I make?

[Stig]

In my homebrew I'm trying to remove the Character Sheet. The stumbling block I've come across is noting down Potions derived from Treasure Cards obtained in one quest, then used in future Quests. This is because at the end of the Quest, the Treasure Cards are returned to the treasure deck, and the potion is simply noted on the character sheet.

One solution is to have a separate potion deck, and the have the following system:

1)Hero draws a Treasure Card, gets a potion
2)The Treasure Card goes to a discard pile, and the Hero takes a Potion of Healing/Strength/Defense/Heroic Brew from a separate potion deck

How many of the Treasure Card potions should this deck need - how many was the most of each you remember having?

If there are no potions left in the Potion deck, I will have to rule that the Hero cannot obtain the potion, which could make life more tricky for the Heroes, but equally I don't want tonnes of unnecessary cards.

Also - how many DIFFERENT potions of healing are there in the popular Quests? The Treasure deck has "heal D6 body points" and I remember seeing a lot of "heal 4 body points"; will I need to create potions of Healing for 2, 3, 4 body points too?

Is this goal just impractical as so many Quest notes have so many different types of Potions? This has been the hardest part of the character-sheet less bit for me.

Where I've been going with this is here:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1446&p=100574&hilit=what+are+you+working+on+to#p100574

Any help gratefully received...

[StratosVX]

Some spells in DragonStrike lasted for a certain number of turns. These spell cards had a counter on them. You could implement something similar with your cards where each hero has a potion card and that potion card has a counter on it similar to DragonStrike. The idea is you have a plastic piece that clips onto the edge of the card to indicate how many they have. Then you would need one potion card for each potential player. Also you can change the quest notes/cards to make all potions of healing the same strength, you don't need to keep them the same as what the quests say.

[QorDaq]

I'm a big fan of specialized decks, basically for anything that might be purchased in the various shops (Armory/ Alchemist)... As to quantities of potions, I'd think that there are a couple of approaches.

One might be to essentially replicate the distribution in the treasure deck and leave it at that.

Another would be to make a judgement call based on the frequency of a given potion you want in your game. For example; say you want the less costly (More common potions) found in the shops to be relatively easy to acquire, in that case you could have enough "In stock" for each character to purchase at least one of that Potion type. While less common potions might only be available for two or three purchases. This could be increased or decreased perhaps based on the instances of similar potions turning up in a given quest.

I'm sure there are other options as well, but I like the second idea above myself.

Another possibility is to have a look through the cards section on the main Ye Olde Inn page. I think it was Sjeng, that made a downloadable file (PDF) with a collection of UK style Potions, some of which have multiple copies I believe. You could just snag something like that, or use it as a reference. drathe did a similar set for NA style.

Point being, whatever you decide to do, the number of cards you make available will represent the scarcity of those Potions as resources for the party. Maybe lean into that idea and experiment with having lesser and greater numbers available from session to session. But ultimately, having enough for any one particular quest plus a few for sale, should be sufficient I'd think.

Success on finding a satisfying solution.

[Stig]

I'm a big fan of specialized decks, basically for anything that might be purchased in the various shops (Armory/ Alchemist)... Another would be to make a judgement call based on the frequency of a given potion you want in your game. For example; say you want the less costly (More common potions) found in the shops to be relatively easy to acquire, in that case you could have enough "In stock" for each character to purchase at least one of that Potion type. While less common potions might only be available for two or three purchases. This could be increased or decreased perhaps based on the instances of similar potions turning up in a given quest.

I'm sure there are other options as well, but I like the second idea above myself

Thanks for the tips, and also prefer the second option. I'm also a fan of specialised decks; what I'm also planning is separate settlement cards with armouries that contain different quantities of goods at various prices. So if you want a special item you need to go to a "City" where it will likely be in stock and more expensive - the settlement card replaces the armoury and stock roll.

The way it would tie in with the idea is to have a certain number of the different potions in the deck as mentioned, and state that if there isn't a card for that potion then it's out of stock no matter what.

[torilen]

I love the idea of having the counter right on the card, using some sort of clip (paper clip?)
to keep track. I think I am going to have to implement this into my future works.

[Anderas]

Paperclips on a card! New Idea! Storable! Information on your hand! You take it and you give it away! Wow, I have to think about it. Right now I think this is a great idea!

[Stig]

A great idea. This product already exists at thegamecrafter:

https://www.thegamecrafter.com/search?q=Clips

I played one game with them, Betrayl at House on the Hill, and the clips were too loose and kept sliding off. They were rubbish but the idea was neat.

One design feature was that the scale needn’t be linear; the gist was you lose mind points, and the scale went something like

5, 5, 3, 2, 2, 1

Therefore the first mind damage didn’t actually change how many mind “points” you had.

The possibilities...

[StratosVX]

Paper clips may bend the cards and those cheap plastic ones don't stay on very well. However, small binder clips should hold better.

[cornixt]

I already use tokens instead of scribbling down body point changes. I'd just add X tokens on top of the multi-turn spell card and remove one per turn.

[Jafazo]

Introduce a "Generic Counter Card" that's easy to reproduce that can represent a player possessing more than one of the same item.

The card would match the size of other cards but should have an upward facing arrow on the far left side, followed by an icon that looks something like a black +1 text with a white circle around it (perhaps made to resemble a combat die). You use it by simply sliding it beneath any item you obtain an additional copy of. The upward facing arrow means it is an exact duplicate of the card above it. A hero who obtains 4 potions of healing would have a potion of healing card and three generic counter cards below it. Using the potion removes them in order from bottom to top.

If you anticipate large quantities of any item in the game, like the magical throwing daggers players like to hoard, you could even create a few Generic Counter Cards that have a +2 and even a +3 on them. So if a hero has a total of four potions of healing he could place one potion of healing card in his inventory then a +3 generic counter card below it. When he consumes a potion he could switch the +3 Generic Counter Card for a +2 and so on.

This card reduces the number of cards you'd inevitably need by a large amount and with so many on hand it's doubtful you'd have to worry about penalizing players by not letting them obtain potions of healing due to deck limitations. This is a big no no, I recommend you bin the whole system before you apply it. In total, your game should be perfectly sound with about 30 of these generic counter cards all placed neatly in some kind of little container or whatever. That means you'd only need 4 of each potion type (1 per player). I'd still create 5 in case one gets lost/broken.