Saturday, June 25, 2011

New Item: d12 Hour Power

Today I have a long but humorous rant:

For as long as I can remember, we gamers are probably more familiar than most in our society about need for caffeinated drinks to extend both our work and play (I prefer gallons of tea). Now however, it seems that within the last decade or so, advertisements are all over the place for these energy boosting products that claim no side effects. Is our culture really that strung out that simple caffeine drinks are not enough to get through the day? Is being an insomniac desirable? (If I don't get 8+ hours of sleep I'm useless) This stuff is a big market apparently because the makers of these energy products keep trying to one-up each other. Check it out, first there was a five hour energy "shot". Then to our convenient stores came six hour power. Not to be outdone, someone made a drink that works seven hours. Then someone figured drinking wasted too much energy so they came up with eight hour capsules. Hell, another guy said, if eight hours is good, nine hours has to be better. Scoffing at a mere nine hours, another genius finally concocted ten hours of power. That's nearly half a day! Can it possibly get any better than that?! Mad scientists haven't reached that plateau quite yet, but in the world of D&D it can! I present to you, from the alchemy labs of Greyhawk City's University of Magical Arts....

Searching mega-dungeons and slaying monsters
all day is a breeze with d12 Hour Power!
Yes, D&D potions are the original energy shot with no side effects. Looking back through my books the spells and potion types change over the editions but at certain points d12 hour "buffing" potions was very possible. 1st edition AD&D (and I assume 2nd edition) Strength spells for instance lasted 6 turns/ level. For those who don't recall, one turn was equal to 10 minutes, so a 12th level magic-user could effectively buff someone for 12 hours! Even potions in 1st edition were modestly noted as lasting 4 turns +1d4 turns of duration (50-80 minutes). Then 3rd edition came along and had a slew of buffs for all character stats and they started at the equally eye-boggling 1 hour per spell level and this time potions had full effect of the spell that made it. This of course meant virtually permanent stat boosts for everyone with a mage. Luckily for DMs 3.5th edition fixed this broken system and knocked their durations down to 1 minute/ level. I have no idea if 4th edition currently has buff spells/potions like this, but I'm sure they don't need it and if they do I wager they only last per encounter.

Back to d12 Hour Power, why not have a moderately powerful potion like this for fun? It could be the creation of a chaotic-neutral wizard who mixed and distilled one too many potions of speed or the special brew of an over-achieving deity's temple. If anything it's a good excuse to break out those often neglected d12-sided dice. And hey, they come in a variety of fruity flavors:

Brown Kara (Strength)
Golden Galda (Constitution)
Sour Crabapple (Dexterity)
Dark Chokecherry (Wisdom)
Apricot-Peach (Intelligence)
Blue Usk (Charisma)

Disclaimer: d12 Hour Power is not proof against Dispel Magic or anti-magic effects. Potion effects are not cumulative with other spells or boosting drinks. Although there are no side-effects, monsters, NPCs and some PCs may try to kill you for your potion.

Update 4/12/2021: Well I'm quite shocked most of these links still work. I had to remove 9 and 10 hour energy links. I guess those got shut down by the FDA haha. Anyways, this was a fun random article. Wish I had done more like it.

10 comments:

Simon Forster said...

Classic! I'll take a crabapple and a chokecherry please.

Anonymous said...

Where was this when i worked midnights!!! Mort i think Araxo may have found his "product".

Jason Zavoda said...

You need a side-effects table. Uncontrolled gigling, a need to urinate frequently, random rude noises, a blue-tinged aura that surrounds vision, cannot ride heavy warhorses or operate siege machinery, etc...

Anonymous said...

Send me a case of the Apricot-Peach!

Nice stuff, Mort. You always come through my friend!

Mystic Scholar

Mike Bridges said...

Simon: You can find them for sale sat Bubka's Exchange in GHC. Price is TBD. ;P

(Concerning Araxo) Your characters are all so stat poor, you'd use all the product yourselves!

JZ: Shhhhh! d12 Hour Power is supposed to have no side-effects. Which like the real world means there IS. ;)

Mystic: I try my best.

Argon said...

Sounds like Jones soda company should of meet with you when developing their D&D soda line.

Victor Von Dave said...

That ad looks so familiar... I seem to remember it from the pages of Dragon.
You've got to tell me, I'm dying to know what the original ad was :)

The Dave said...

I love the side effects table..

Mike Bridges said...

VVD: I think it was a Ral Partha ad. All I know is I covered the box and shopped the minis out of the pic.

Gamerstable Eric said...

I think that Araxo is looking for something a little more "natural", but thanks for the suggestion.

Eric