Healing Potions Are Dumb (and how I fix them)

Edit: My first and only experiment with AI. I used AI to create the images in this post. I fed my essay to the Google Gemini and asked it to make an image based on what I had written. I didn't like the first image very much (at the bottom) so I asked it for a second abstract image and got this one (at the top).

I don’t like healing potions in most tabletop role-playing games because they feel too random and inefficient. Picture this: you're playing a first-level fighter in D&D, let's say you have the max 10 hit points, and if you get hit badly you might lose 8 of those hit points and be down to 2. You say "I take my healing potion!" and the DM says "Roll a D6." and then you roll a 1. Fuck that.

 

In every edition of D&D you’ll have rules about natural healing, in Basic D&D it was only 1d3 hp healed with a full day's rest, but a lot of people house rule that. In the first game I played the DM had a houserule that your character recovered their level plus their Constitution bonus back in hit points every time you slept. However, resting for 8 hours in 5th edition D&D will heal you back to full hit points! That means that a healing potion is garbage.

 

These supposedly magical, life-saving elixirs are less effective than taking a nap. That's not magic, that's homeopathy.

The randomness is insulting at every level. Sure, you might roll well and get 6-8 HP back from a standard potion (2d4+2 in 5th Edition). Or you might get 4. Or 3. For something you paid good gold for, something that takes your entire action in combat to use, this variability is maddening. It's like ordering a pizza and having the restaurant roll a d8 to decide how many slices you should get.

Earlier editions of D&D are stingier. 1st edition only allows you to heal 1 hit point per day (modified by your Constitution bonus). 2nd edition increases this to 3 hit points per day. 3rd edition finally caught up to my first DM's houserule though without a Con bonus, but also added the Heal skill which allowed characters to double this rate of healing or even recover lost ability points. Still better than a potion!

The Video Game Problem: Death By A Thousand Potions

 Now let's talk about video game RPGs, where the problem somehow gets worse.

In games like Baldur's Gate 3, you don't have a scarcity problem but a hoarding problem. Your inventory becomes a graveyard of healing consumables: Lesser Potions, Standard Potions, Greater Potions, Superior Potions, Supreme Potions, Healing Tinctures, Elixirs of Health, and probably seventeen varieties I'm forgetting because I never use them.

Why? Because once you have a healer with Healing Word (a bonus action spell), potions become redundant. But you keep looting them. You keep buying them "just in case." You keep sorting through your inventory trying to remember which color bottle is which tier. Meanwhile, you're hauling around 43 Superior Potions "for the final boss" that you'll never actually use because you'll be too busy hoarding them for an even more final boss.

It's the hoarder's dilemma meets inventory management hell. Video games shower you with so many healing items that they become meaningless clutter rather than precious resources. If you've played Skyrim then I wonder how many cheese wheels you have in your home.

 To be fair, some games have figured this out:

Dark Souls and Elden Ring nailed it with the Estus Flask and Flask of Crimson Tears, respectively. You have a fixed number of charges that heals a specific amount of health which will automatically refill whenever you rest. No inventory clutter. No decision paralysis. Just a reliable healing resource that you will run out of if you're not careful. It's elegant, it's clean, it works.

Modern Final Fantasy made healing items weak in combat but great for post-battle recovery, encouraging you to actually use them instead of hoarding them forever.

The Witcher series said "screw healing potions" and made preparation-based elixirs that give you combat buffs instead. Not a healing solution, but at least it's interesting, if only useful once you've died to the monsters a few times while trying to figure out what works best.

Baldur's Gate 3 tries to help by making potions a bonus action and allowing you to throw them for AoE healing (which is genuinely funny to me), but you still end up with inventory bloat.

Make Potions Powerful But Scarce

Here's my proposal, and it's beautifully simple:

A healing potion should restore you to full HP. And it should cost a fortune.

Think about it. If a potion gives you a complete, guaranteed recovery from near-death suddenly:

• It feels magical. No more "I drank liquid starlight and got 3 HP back." This is a miracle in a bottle.
• It's worth using your action. Trading your turn to go from 2 HP to full? That's a legitimate tactical decision, not a desperate gamble.
• Scarcity becomes a balancing mechanism. Price it at 500 gold or more. Make merchants stock one per month. Suddenly players aren't carrying a dozen potions each; they're carrying one, maybe two for the whole party. And the decision of when to use it becomes genuinely tense. In games that I run I never even have magic items for sale, you need to quest for something like this or spend weeks crafting it.
  
• It creates memorable moments. "Remember when Sarah used the last potion to save Marcus from the dragon?" is a better story than "Remember when I rolled another 2 on a healing potion?"

This is the same philosophy Magic: The Gathering uses with powerful cards. Don't make them weak and common; make them strong and rare. Let the scarcity be the balance.

The Ripple Effects Are All Good

This approach creates better gameplay across the board (no pun intended). 

• There's no inventory bloat. You're not managing seventeen tiers of healing items since you have the healing potion.
• There's strategic depth as the party has to decide collectively who carries the precious potion and when it gets used. 
• Narrative weight is added to treasure. Finding or earning a healing potion feels like an event, not routine loot drop #72.

Healing potions should be the nuclear option. Rare, powerful, and respected. Not a slot machine you carry forty of. Not a worse alternative to sleeping. Not something you forget about in your inventory until you're cleaning up before the final boss.

Make them magical. Make them matter. Make them good.

Dark Souls magic

The series starts with three kinds of magic: sorceries, miracles, and pyromancies.

Sorcery is a form of magic that is implied to have been created by Seath, the "grandfather of sorcery," the scaleless dragon who betrayed all other dragons for a chance at immortality. Anyone with a high Intelligence and a catalyst (usually a staff of some kind) can cast a sorcery. There are less than 28 sorceries in the first Dark Souls and that number only grew to 39 by the third installment.

Miracles are stories retold so many times that they have become a form of magic, the story evokes an effect. Though miracles do require both a Talisman to cast and a high Faith score. The first Dark Souls has 23 miracles and that number exploded to 38 by the third game.

Pyromancies originated as flame sorceries that only the Witch of Izalith and her Daughters of Chaos knew. When they failed to recreate the First Flame, pyromancy was one of the resulting side effects of their failure. Within the lore of Dark Souls, learning to wield a pyromancy flame requires that you produce the flame from your own body. There is no stat requirement for casting a pyromancy spell. There are only 20 pyromancies in the first Dark Souls, but by the third game there are 30 of them.

(In the second Dark Souls game they introduce hexes, which originate as a subset of sorcery from the Abyss that deals Dark damage, but it is implied that this same Dark magic has tainted some miracles as some hexes are cast the same way that a miracle would be.)

Suppose you apply these forms of magic to D&D. Sorceries are the domain of wizards, miracles would apply to clerics, and pyromancies would most easily fit with druids. Bards would, predictably, dabble with all of them. But a magic system that only requires the proper stat requirement and the tool to use it appeals to me more than a class-based system. The lore behind each spell usually explains where it originates within the game's backstory. Consider the in-game description for Fall Control, the Dark Souls equivalent of feather Fall:

"Sorcery developed by a certain surreptitious sorcerer at Vinheim Dragon School. Reduce damage and noise from fall.
This sorcery, along with Hush, explains the extravagant cost of hiring Vinheim spooks."

What if Mirror Image was just a spell you could find out in the world? And you knew it was developed in a city called Riverport? So if you want it, you'd venture toward Riverport to look for it, right?

These are all things I want for D&D: Lore for spells. An origin of magic. Smaller spell lists.

escape from Vancian magic

here is a continuation of my ramblings about Vancian magic

What do I dislike about Vancian magic?
Memorization.
What do my players dislike about Vancian magic?
Memorization.

Solution: get rid of memorization.

What do I like about magic?
When a wizard, in DCC, rolls a 20 and gets an uber-result or a bonus effect.
What do my players like about magic?
When the spell does what they want it to do.

Solution: make the spells simple affairs that have the potential to make uber-results.

The idea I have now is to give wizards Magic Points that they use to cast spells.
Earning Magic Points by leveling up (this is a rough draft):
Level 1 = +1mp
Level 2 = +1mp
Level 3 = +1mp
Level 4 = +2mp
Level 5 = +2mp
Level 6 = +3mp
Level 7 = +3mp
Level 8 = +4mp
Level 9 = +4mp
Level 10 = +5mp

Wizards add their best bonus between Intelligence and Constitution to their Magic Point total at each level. A Magic-User with +1 to int and +2 to con gets +2 Magic Points (total of 3mp at 1st level, 6mp at 2nd level, 9mp at 3rd level, 13mp at 4th level, etc.) That might be too fiddly, but it's my starting point.

Spells also cost an equal amount to cast so a Level 1 spell costs 1 Magic Point to cast. There is no roll and no memorization, if the Magic-User knows the spell then they cast it. Magic Points recover completely after resting/sleeping for 8 hours. Magic Points can probably be recovered through meditation, magic items, or just having reduced costs for specific conditions. Some sort of crystal or plant, maybe both, can help a wizard recover MP faster. Some things, like monsters or cursed items, would drain MP!

Spellburn: if a wizard "burns" their Constitution they can create an uber-effect with a spell. Burned Con points recover at 1 per week, magical healing doesn't increase the amount healed or reduce the time needed to heal. Maybe a purple lotus flower could recover burnt Con.

Map spell progression to leveling, a 3rd-level wizard can cast 3rd-level spells, but do they know the spell?!

Specialists get reduced casting costs or can create bonus effects easier with their specialized school.


Coda
This all assumes a 10-level character progression.
Having written this all out and looking at it side by side, I'm leaning toward comparing the different versions of the same spells across multiple systems (AD&D, Labyrinth Lord, LotFP, DCC, plus anything else I own) and seeing if I can distill the spell down to a simple action with little need for adjudicating effects.

non-Vancian

I've been thinking a lot about how magic works in D&D and how it could be simpler. My players tend to be casual and don't read the rulebooks backward and forwards. Only one person I play with owns a Player's Handbook, and the rest of them are at the table for the ride I'm giving them. As a result, none of them have ever played a wizard or cleric.
"Too busy."
"Seems like a lot of work."
"Complex."
Just what I've heard from them. Meanwhile, I read blog after blog of OSR enthusiasts inventing rules for streamlining combat or generating random encounters, but nothing for just giving players a simplified wizard character with little to no work on their part.

Enter Stars Without Number. The original rules have a very streamlined and elegantly simple way for psychic characters to progress through their power. The revised edition expands on this system, adding common abilities attached to the psychic's skill level with the area of psychic discipline.

This last week I've been thinking about how you could apply this simple elegance to wizards, and there are a lot of pitfalls. How do you give them the ability to detect magic and identify magic items? How do you give them the same arc of power present in earlier versions of D&D? How do you allow them to specialize in one type of magic? I stopped trying to solve all of the problems and decided to just make my own wizards. I've never liked the Vancian system of magic, and I always felt the 2nd edition AD&D method of specializing in a school was hobbled with bad bonuses. I like the idea though so I want there to be two types of Magic-Users: specialists and wizards. Specialists would be characters who receive less power overall but get automatic bonuses from their school/affinity and Wizards would receive greater powers but would not be able to specialize in any way. So far, this is what I've come up with:

Assuming a 10-level character progression...
Magic is divided up into affinities, or paths, and a magic-user studies an affinity in order to cast spells from it.

Magic-Users have Magic Points equal to their Constitution score plus their Intelligence modifier.
1st-level Spells cost 9 Magic Points to cast at 1st-level. At each successive level, they cost 1 less Magic Point to cast. All spell levels act like this, thus a 2nd-level Magic-User casts 2nd-level spells with 9 Magic Points and 1st-level spells with 8 Magic Points. Specialists always reduce the cost to cast their spells by 1 Magic Point. Sleeping for 8 hours restores all Magic Points.

All Magic-Users can Detect Magic. They need to concentrate to see magical auras, which means moving slowly and taking no other actions. When a Magic-User touches an object, they instantly know whether it is magical or not, regardless of whether they're concentrating or not.

An example of an Affinity might be:

Necromancy
Level 1 = Speak with Corpse (spirit of dead body speaks to necromancer)
Level 2 = Scare (frightens opponent into fleeing/cowering)
Level 3 = Drain Life (touch creature and drain 1d4hp to gain 1mp per caster level each round)
Level 4 = Contagion (produces/spreads disease)
Level 5 = Enervation (fatigues living creatures)
Level 6 = Create Undead (raises corpses as zombie soldiers, or assembles bones into skeletal servants)
Level 7 = Magic Jar (necromancer's spirit is able to live on past the destruction of their body)
Level 8 = Clone (makes a perfect copy of one creature)
Level 9 = Death Spell (instantly slays one creature)

I'm not sure if this really works, I'm going to keep thinking about this though.

the random spells of Freebooters on the Frontier

This Sunday we started a new game, a hack of Dungeon World called Freebooters on the Frontier that emulates the randomness of old school D&D fairly well.

I like the Spell Name Generator from Freebooters so much that I made a page for it on Abulafia. The Magic-User in the group rolled up two spells: Winyop's Door of Despair and Murzmut's Call of Steel

The beauty of the Freebooters system is that the spells can have a more malleable and open-ended use, provided you can fit what the spell does within the themed name of the spell. Right away, Murzmut's Call of Steel was being used to snatch swords away from enemies, fling weapons around in a magnetic tornado, and draw daggers out from small groups of kobolds so that they'd all stab one another. Winyop's Door of Despair was less useful in such a direct way, but I allowed the "door" it could create to drop magical liquid out from it so that the Magic-User could attempt to extinguish fires and scald enemies who were running from house to house, attempting to set the PCs' home village on fire.

I was drawing from the first chapter of Hoard of the Dragon Queen for inspiration, as I wanted the session to start with a tense fight. This is everything I wrote during the session:

the village of Galapagos (one of the players named the village)
dirt poor, steady population, no militia, resource (balsam-pears), safe (village has walls from a collapsed keep), remote (large dwarven population), oath (to Cold Cliff Keep)
Temple of Rheezele, goddess of nature (and trickery)
the One Legged Cat, tavern
dwarven pathways: when a dwarf or halfling tries to sneak through the cracked walls surrounding Galapagos, roll+INT. On a 10+, you get where you want to go without being seen or heard. On a 7-9, you get where you want to be but not without being seen or heard. On a miss, some stones collapse and you're trapped in the pathway.

Danger: Siege of Galapagos
✓ the keep is surrounded (half the kobolds have been routed)
□ the mill burns down (currently on fire)
✓ the dragon attacks
✓ the dragonkin commander arrives (he was defeated)
□ the temple is set on fire
□ the south wall collapses
Impending Doom: the village is overrun

cultists, HP 5, Armor 1, shortsword 1d6, set house on fire, call for reinforcements
kobolds, HP 4, dagger 1d4, surround an opponent, retreat and regroup
Cyanwrath - the dragonkin commander, HP 7, Armor 2, lead kobolds/cultists, challenge opponent

And that was enough to keep me busy. Next week I'll actually prepare some fronts to further this Hoard of the Dragon Queen adventure, but the critics are right: this adventure is not written well.

The PCs ended up capturing some kobolds, killing some cultists, and taking the blue dragonkin commander as their prisoner. When the keep was surrounded, Mirren and Matti routed the kobolds successfully. Gerda stole the dragonkin commander's sword before anybody was forced to fight him. The fire at the mill was extinguished, but when Gerda was forced to flee from the mill some kobolds set it on fire again. The dragon swooped around the village several times, and two sections of the village were set aflame by it's fire breath.

Just for fun, I also rolled up quite a few extra spells:
Ward of the Pestilential Boon, I imagine it could be used to bestow immunity from disease or infection
Cloak of the Bloody Curse, the first thing that comes to mind is a red cloak that permeates fear in others and/or causes harm to any who approach too closely
Binding Rot of Ingoth, paralyzing/destructive magic
Zza-leo’s Venom Blast, I would use this to spit poison at enemies or even trap objects to explode with a poisonous gas/spray

Character creation plus the PCs' home village being under siege was plenty of fun, and a welcome change from playing 5th edition D&D.

diseases from Hell

When you enter the lower planes you risk infection of the mind. Surrounded by the infernal machinations of a twisted landscape, the human psyche can fracture under the strain of confronting an irredeemably evil universe designed to defile mortal souls and eradicate all traces of hope. Psychological disorders contracted within the lower planes are not always apparent or immediate.

Humans who enter the lower planes are subject to a unique mental illness. Torphrenia.

In some areas of the lower planes simply breathing the air is dangerous. Characters who come into contact with this should save versus breath weapon to avoid contracting the illness. After infection, symptoms don't appear until the character returns to their home plane. The next day they wake up, they will have a sever headache (-1 maximum hit points). Every day that passes the headache gets worse (cumulative -1 maximum hit points). When the character kills somebody (a humanoid) then the pain abates slightly (remove one -1 penalty) and if the humanoid is killed in a particularly painful or gruesome way then the pain almost disappears completely (remove five -1 penalties) but never quite goes away (never drops below -1 maximum hit points). This is not a disease in the usual sense, so typical methods of curing the illness won't work, but attempts to remove a curse or even successful exorcisms will cure the victim.

Humans who physically touch the skin of devils are likely to contract a virulent skin disease. Cubiasis.

At the moment of contact roll 1d20 and add intelligence (add +5 if the character is Lawful), if the total is 24 or greater than the character contracts the disease. Anybody infected with cubiasis can potentially spread the disease through skin on skin contact. Once infected the only way to prevent or cure the disease is either with priestly magic or reducing the character's intelligence to 0 (the latter method make the disease flake off and disappear after one week). The disease is not obvious for three days, symptoms appear on the third day when the infected develops a strange square pattern of reddish lines on their skin. These squares grow out from under the skin like cubes and turn dark red by the fifth day of infection. These red cube-like growths are always tightly packed together and grow it in small patches, slowly overtaking the body. Once the character's skin is completely covered by the growths (after 9+1d6 days, about two weeks) they are overcome by the disease and will look for a quiet, cool place to rest. If they are allowed to rest or sleep, the character dies. Within another day the small cubes will explode into spores and the disease becomes airborne. It is possible to be infected and show no symptoms, evil characters who get infected never show symptoms and are merely contagious.

magic-users

I once wrote about how I had been toying with this Apocalypse World-inspired magic system of success/partial success/failure results. Recently I've been looking at Dungeon Crawl Classics magic system a lot more, because I like the varying power levels of spells despite the overload of paperwork. The way I've been thinking of spells now is that even on a "miss" the spell would be cast, a character who can use magic will cast the spell regardless of choices or rolls. After the spell has been cast the magic-user would roll again to see how powerful the spell is, potentially all of these dice could be rolled together since the power roll would use different die types.

Using the DCC RPG spells as a standard, here's how I have it written so far.

when you cast a spell, roll+spell or choose 1 option, on a 15+ choose none, on a 10-14 choose 2, on a miss choose 3 and you draw attention to yourself:
- spell lost, you can't cast the spell again until after you rest
- the spell corrupts you
- the spell misfires and does something unexpected
- your magic dwindles, -1ongoing to magic until you rest

Power (2d10+magic)
Under 12: Spell works as normal
12-15: +1 enhancement
16-18: +2 enhancements
19-21: +4 enhancements
22+: Critical!

Corruption
Under 10: Minor corruption
10-14: Major corruption
15+: Greater corruption

Charm Person
The magic-user charms a humanoid to become friendly, they will regard the caster as a friend and ally but not do anything against their own nature.
Range: 40 yards, Duration: 1 day, Corruption: 1d4+magic+spell
Enhancements: affects +1 target (multiple), add +1 day (multiple)
Critical: affects 2d6+magic targets, lasts one month, and caster has complete control over targets (will perform suicidal or contradictory tasks)
Misfire 1d4: 1) caster also falls in love with target(s), 2) two randomly determined nearby humanoids fall in love with each other, 3) caster inadvertently puts target(s) to sleep, 4) target(s) are repulsed and angered by everyone nearby except the caster

Slow
The magic-user impairs the ability of a target creature to move at its normal speed, to such a degree that it's attacks are easily avoided. Attack rolls must still be made to hurt the slowed creature.
Range: 30 yards, Duration: 1 turn, Corruption: 1d8+magic+spell
Enhancements: affects +1 creature (multiple), add +1 turn (multiple)
Critical: all creatures that are actively hostile to caster within range are frozen in place for 3 turns
Misfire 1d4: 1) caster slows one ally within sight (if no ally in sight then caster slows themself), 2) caster slows all allies within range (if no allies in range then caster slows themself), 3) caster ages 10 years, 4) a nearby animal or insect develops the Slow spell as an innate ability (usable once/day)

Polymorph
The magic-user transforms himself or another into a different creature, assuming the creature's form and manner of movement as well as the creature's ability to survive in it's natural habitat.
Range: touch, Duration: 1 hour, Corruption: 1d10+magic+spell
Enhancements: affects +1 creature (multiple), add +1 day (multiple), grant all of the natural & magical abilities of the new form
Critical: caster can transform themself and +magic+spell targets into a new creature with all of the natural & magical abilities of the new form for up to one week
Misfire 1d4: 1) target is transformed into inoffensive domestic animal, 2) partial transformation of changed head and normal body or vice versa, 3) target's skin changes to new form but that is all, 4) also summons 1d4 creatures of the intended transformation to the caster's location and they are angry or hungry

Pretty simple in comparison to DCC RPG, but still requires a bit of paperwork.

three magic items

I entered the OSR Superstar Competition. None of my stuff got picked, but that's okay. When I use magic items I prefer to design them to fit my own game and within the context of whatever the story is. This was an interesting exercise as I tried to write concise entries that could easily be dropped into any GM's world. Here they are:

the Loyal Blade of Death
This is a simple dagger made of iron. It appears to be slightly dull and the handle is made of wrapped leather that appears torn at the ends, as if it may unravel if used too much. The dagger itself is impervious to harm, though the leather wrapping is just the most recently fashioned handle.
If wielded against an opponent it will inflict 1d4 damage. If a sapient (Int 2+) creature is killed with the dagger, the wielder will feel a surge of energy from the blade and the damage will increase to 1d6. Killing a sapient creature continues to increase the die type of damage every time one is slain with the blade itself. Thus 1d6 becomes 1d8, 1d8 becomes 1d10 etc. until it maxes out at 1d100 (if the GM has access to other die types such as d16s and d24s she is encouraged to include those as well). If the dagger is lent to another person, or even touched by a sapient creature other than the current wielder, the damage die type resets back to 1d4.
The dagger will radiate as powerfully magical and resists all forms of divination to reveal its powers, but a Commune or Legend Lore spell might reveal that the blade was not crafted on the mortal plane of reality. Sleeping while having the dagger on one's person, or under their pillow, will cause the owner to dream the deaths of all of the people and creatures the blade has killed, from the dead's perspective. In truth, the blade has recorded all of these experiences, and being so close to the blade causes a mortal mind to share those recorded sensations. Some demon will some day come looking for the blade to drain all of the experiences from the dagger. They may already be looking for it...

Ring of Returning Home
This simple unmarked band of gold was once around the ring finger of a prominent magic-user who was married to another magic-user of some talent. The ring was created so that their spouse would never get lost in their work and always come back to their mutually shared home to rest. The names of these magic-users have been lost to time, but the legend of the ring remains and for many wielders of magic who construct their own towers it would be a valuable prize.
The ring only works for magic-users, and nobody else is capable of getting it to work. It allows the wearer to visualize a place they have been to before and instantly teleport there, but it must be a very familiar place to the wearer. The ring can be used as many times in a day as the wearer wishes, however the second time the ring is used it will always teleport the wearer back to the exact location they teleported from before. In fact, if they haven't returned by midnight of the same day (from where they teleported from) then they are instantly and against their will teleported back.
The ring will not function according to command, or for anybody else who attempts to use it, until the "return trip" has been made by the original wearer. Removing the ring will not prevent the "return" teleport, as both the wearer who used the ring and the ring itself will teleport back to their original location at midnight of that day. If the ring is used and the wearer dies, then at midnight their body and the ring teleport back to where the ring was first used.

Gravity Boots
Across the sea there is a city of towers and buildings that stretch unbelievably high, and to reach these places there are alleys and streets that stretch above and below ground and traverse every corner of the city's impossible heights and fathomed depths. In this city is a thief who can walk on walls and ceilings and jump from any building and land on her feet, and the gravity boots are how she does it.
The boots don't actually break gravity, but they create a localized gravity field around anybody who wears them. Down is always relative to the boots being worn and outside of this localized gravity field momentum and weight mean nothing. The wearer can walk up walls and onto ceilings as if they were solid ground. If the wearer is fighting while using the boots then both they and their attackers suffer -2 penalties to hit each other, due to the weirdness of interacting with localized gravity. This also applies to missile fire directed at the wearer when the boots are allowing them to walk up walls or jump off rooftops, but doesn't apply to missile fire from the wearer.
The boots do not enhance the wearer's ability to jump and if they make a concerted effort to separate from a ceiling or wall they will jump off of it but as long as the wearer can land on their feet they won't take damage from falling any distance of height (resolve a jump as a saving throw with a +4 bonus, a particularly difficult jump would have no bonus). Reverse Gravity spells have no effect on the boots while they are being worn, the localized gravity field trumps external effects.