Healing Potions in D&D 5e (Updated for the 2024 Rules)

Potion of Healing

• Can be drank or administered as a Bonus Action

You regain 2d4 + 2 Hit Points when you drink this potion.

The potion’s red liquid glimmers when agitated.

Potion of Healing (Greater)

• Can be drank or administered as a Bonus Action

You regain 4d4 + 4 Hit Points when you drink this potion.

The potion’s red liquid glimmers when agitated.

Potion of Healing (Superior)

• Can be drank or administered as a Bonus Action

You regain 8d4 + 8 Hit Points when you drink this potion.

The potion’s red liquid glimmers when agitated.

Potion of Healing (Supreme)

• Can be drank or administered as a Bonus Action

You regain 10d4 + 2o Hit Points when you drink this potion.

The potion’s red liquid glimmers when agitated.

2024 Healing Potions

Drinking a Potion of Healing isn’t all that complex:

You regain Hit Points when you drink this potion. The number of Hit Points depends on the potion’s rarity, as shown in the table below.

– 2024 D&D Free Rules

Despite most healing spells getting a buff in the 2024 core rules, there are no changes to the math here—each version of the potion heals the same number of Hit Points as it did back in 2014:

But the big buff comes to the Potion of Healing’s action economy, not their potency:

Potions Are Now a Bonus Action

Okay, this is where things get interesting.

In the 2014 rules, drinking a potion was an action. So unless you were chugging one outside of combat, it felt like a waste of a turn. Nobody likes standing in the middle of a battlefield just to glug a red bottle.

But in 2024, the official rules follow along with a popular homebrew that was circulating the D&D hobby for years: Drinking or applying a Potion of Healing is now a Bonus Action.

It’s one of those elegant little changes that just makes sense. Nobody likes losing a turn just to heal and in D&D, it’s important to keep up your damage output as combat is usually a race to 0 Hit Points between your party and the opposing team. Now, you can revive your unconscious Barbarian buddy and still fire off a Guiding Bolt or top up your Hit Points so you’ll survive the next round and make two attacks with your Greatsword.

Can You Throw Potions?

Baldur’s Gate 3 has taught a generation of gamers that they can throw potions at allies to apply their effects. This is not a rule in D&D, but if you’d like to add it to your game, here’s a suggestion:

Thrown Potion Variant Rule

You can throw a Potion of Healing at a creature within 30 feet as an action. Make a DC 13 Strength or Dexterity (Athletics) check. On a success, the potion hits and splashes over the creature, applying half its normal healing (rounded down). The other half is lost due to spillage. On a failure, the potion misses and healing isn’t applied.

How Much Should Potions of Healing Cost?

D&D never locked in universal prices for magic items in 2014, but the 2024 rules provide some more easy-to-follow guidelines. The 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide has suggestions for prices based on magic item rarities. It also tells us to halve the value for consumable items. This brings us to:

• Potion of Healing (Common) – 50 gp
• Greater (Uncommon) – 200 gp
• Superior (Rare) – 2,000 gp
• Supreme (Very Rare) – 20,000 gp

Personally, I feel that the regular Potion of Healing and the Potion of Healing (Greater) are decently priced (with some room for negotiation, of course). But the Superior and Supreme versions are vastly more expensive than they should be.

Using Baldur’s Gate 3’s suggested Potion of Healing prices, I feel like this is more of a reasonable cost for these potions:

Brewing Potions of Healing (2024 Rules)

The 2024 Player’s Handbook gives us a nice, clean rule for brewing potions right out of the box—no need to dig through Xanathar’s or homebrew it on the fly.

Brewing a Potion of Healing
If your character is proficient with an Herbalism Kit, you can create a Potion of Healing (the basic 2d4 + 2 kind). To do so, you must:

• Use an Herbalism Kit
• Spend 1 day of downtime (8 hours of work)
• Use 25 GP worth of raw materials

That’s it! You don’t even need to be a spellcaster. Any Ranger, Druid, or crafty Rogue with a love for botany can churn these out between quests. If you’re looking to save gold over time, this is one of the most efficient crafting options in the game.

Can You Brew Better Potions?

The 2024 core rules doesn’t provide crafting rules for Greater, Superior, or Supreme Potions of Healing. If you’re open to house rules, here’s a solid approach based on rarity scaling and the official common potion rule:

Adding Some Fun to Potions of Healing

Healing potions don’t have to be generic red syrup in a glass bottle. They’re alchemical brews with magical properties—so why not have a little fun with them? Here’s how you can spice up their flavor (literally and narratively) and add some gameplay around crafting ingredients.

Taste the Magic: What Does a Potion of Healing Taste Like?

Here’s a rollable table of flavor notes for your next healing draught. Add variety, give players something to describe when they uncork a bottle, or use it to hint at the potion’s origin.

Harvesting Raw Materials

If your party is traveling through the wilderness and I like to let my nature-loving Rangers or Druids forage ingredients for healing potions instead of paying the cost associated with crafting the potion:

Foraging. A character who has proficiency in the Nature skill or with the Herbalism Kit can forage for plants to offset the cost of crafting alchemical compounds (potions).

• Check: A character makes a Wisdom (Nature) or Intelligence (Herbalism Kit) check. DC is 12 in fertile areas, 18 in harsher terrain.
• Success: The character finds enough rare herbs or alchemical components to count as half the cost of a Potion of Healing (13 gp worth).
• Critical Success: They find enough for a full potion or a rare component that could be used for a Potion of Healing (Greater) (DM’s discretion).
• Time and Travel Pace: Foraging can only be attempted when traveling at a Normal or Slow pace. A foraging check can be made once every 4 hours.

Should You Give Your Monsters Healing Potions?

Short answer: Yes. But sparingly—and strategically.

Giving NPCs and monsters healing potions can make encounters feel more dynamic because the enemies are acting with intelligence. If Potions of Healing exist in a setting and can be bought from the apothecary down the street, why wouldn’t the mob boss have a couple brews ready in case they get into danger?

Things to Consider:

• Action Economy: With the 2024 rules allowing potions as a Bonus Action, monsters can heal and attack in the same turn.
• Encounter Design: Give healing potions to bosses, astute mages, or particularly prepared enemies—not every random goblin. One or two enemies using healing mid-fight makes the battle more memorable.
• Loot and Logic: If a monster drinks a potion, it’s one less healing item the party can loot later. But, keep track of how many they drink because the party will likely want to loot any remaining potions once they’re defeated.

In short, monsters with potions can feel like real tacticians—not just stat blocks waiting to be reduced to 0 HP. Use sparingly, and your fights will feel a little more alive.