Love Potion #10?

I've been reviewing the potion scripts while entertaining the idea of making some more potions.  They're simple and fun and gathering ingredients could make for some fun quests.  "What variety of new potions should we have," I wondered.  I briefly thought of making more healing potions, but I quickly discarded that idea because doing so would hurt the game (pardon the pun).

Healing potions are great for emergencies.  They provide instant, one-time healing at the cost of some initial raw materials plus some pack space to hold the potion.  If we were to introduce a new healing potion that had more healing power for the same cost in pack space, then why would anyone carry a bottle of the weaker healing potion?  The stronger potion would be the obvious choice.  Making the ingredients rare won't really impact this choice because it doesn't impact the decision on which potion to carry when the materials become available.  The potion that does more work per inventory slot will be the clear choice.

Then there is the issue of healers.  Why would we need more varieties of healing potions when the Art of Health Recovery is already covered by healers?  If a fighter needs more healing, then the solution should never be "buy more potions," but instead it should be "invite one more healer to the hunt."

Adding healing potions to the game is not going to make healers useless, true, but it does little in the way of increasing their value either.  Keeping that in mind, I have removed healing potions from the list and I return to the drawing table – or in this case, return to the alchemy table.