D&D: Five Consumable Items You Won’t Want to Save Til the Very End
D&D is full of magic items you’re meant to use once and then it’s gone. But who actually does that? Especially with items like these.
The idea of an adventurer laden down with elixirs that enhance their capabilities, with healing potions, and full recovery juice boxes, staunchly refusing to use them because “what if the next fight is real hard” is so real, it’s practically a personal attack. It is not uncommon for RPG characters, whether in a tabletop or video game RPG to have inventories full of healing potions, scrolls, wands, and other temporary items.
Items that could have made that last fight easy, but how can you just use them when you’re waiting for the right moment? Here are five items that you should definitely use once you get your hands on them. From the humble healing potion to the Necklace of Fireballs.
Potion of Healing
This is one of those magic items that’s so iconic it transcends D&D and is just sort of associated with fantasy in general. We all know that healing potions are red, while potions for magic are blue (they don’t necessarily exist in D&D, but you know).
Drink this and you’ll regain some health. It’s a paradigm everyone knows even if they don’t know where they learned it. But you have to actually drink the healing potion.
What’s tricky about them in D&D is that it typically takes an action to drink them. You may have noticed that in Baldur’s Gate 3 it only takes a bonus action (same for Critical Role), which is an easy way to make it more likely that you’ll drink it in combat. Though even if your DM is a stickler for the rules, they’re great to drink after any fight to keep you ready for the next one.
Orc Stone
This magic item exists in Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frost Maiden, and it is a handy one to have in your haversack. When you use the stone as an action, you can summon the spirit of an orc warrior anywhere within 30 feet of you. The orc warrior sticks around for 10 minutes (or until it loses all its hit points), and then vanishes.
After you use this stone three times, it turns to dust. But it’s great. Because that’s three fights you can massively turn the tide of with a single action.
The orc war chief statblock has 93 hit points, so you’re massively improving the total health pool of your party, and the orc can unleash a battlecry and give everyone who hears them advantage on attack rolls until its next turn. And all of that while still also hitting fairly hard depending on what you’re fighting. But even if the orc war chief is just taking hits, it’s a win. The orc stone is a great item for any party, as long as you remember to use it.
Necklace of Fireballs
This is an even easier item to use. It’s a necklace with 1d6 + 3 beads (an average of 6 or 7) that you can detach and hurl up to 60 feet away as a single action. When the bead hits it explodes into a fireball, as te spell, dealing 8d6 damage to anyone who happens to be caught in its massive blast.
That’s just a handful of free fireballs. And it is almost always a good idea to fireball someone, especially if they happen to be a group of someones. What are you waiting for, get in there and mix it up! Sure they’re gone once you hurl them all, bu what a ride!
Oil of Sharpness
Consumable magic items can be amazing if you have a chance to plan ahead. The Oil of Sharpness is a perfect example of this. It coats a piercing or slashing weapon, or five pieces of slashing or piercing ammunition, and then for the next hour, your coated weapon/ammunition becomes a magical +3 weapon.
It’s an amazing weapon in a vial. Sure you only get it for a single hour, but what an hour. Finally, you won’t have to wait for high levels to get a good magic weapon.
Potion of Speed
Drink this potion and not only will you gotta go fast, but you’ll actually go fast since you’ll be under the effects of a haste spell that is maintained without concentration. For the next minute after you drink this, you can make an extra weapon attack, add to your AC and Dexterity saves, and just all around, be a menace.
What are your favorite consumable items?
