Can an unconscious person drink a potion?

Question

PHB 153 reads:

Potion of Healing. A character who drinks the magical red fluid in this vial regains 2d4 + 2 hit points. Drinking or administering a potion takes an action.

By my interpretation, this means that while the rules are flexible in regards to who has to spend the action, they are inflexible in that a character must still actually drink the potion. In other words, any character can administer a potion to save someone else's action, but their target must be conscious and able to drink.

I know part of a DM's job is to apply common sense to my rulings, and common sense tells me that an unconscious person is more likely to choke to death than to swallow 4oz of liquid.

A few of my players disagree. Who's right in this situation?

Answer 1

Your players are right. An unconscious character can consume a potion administered by another player.

This ruling is held up by the Sage Advice Compendium (p. 21):

Can potions be administered to unconscious characters as an action?

Yes, you can administer a potion to someone else as an action (DMG, 139).

As with all things, it's perfectly allowable to house-rule this, especially considering the real-life concerns with dumping fluids down someone's throat. If you decide to do so, make sure your players know that you are making the house rule, and if they are new players, that it is a house rule, so they do not get confused in future games. Additionally, it might not be a bad idea to allow players who purchased potions for use on others to retroactively not purchase them, as the world does not work the way they thought it did when the purchase occurred.

Answer 2

From DMG p.139, "Most potions consist of one ounce of liquid." Just to clarify the amount of liquid we are dealing with here.

From PHB p.197, "If damage reduces you to 0 hit points and does not kill you, you fall unconscious (see Appendix A). This unconsciousness ends if you regain any hit points."

The most obvious answer to this would just be "Rule of Fun" - it's going to be really boring for the other characters if they have no other method of healing, and have to just sit around waiting for the unconscious person to regain a hit point after 1d4 hours. That's not even considering other possible trouble, if they happen to be somewhere it isn't safe to just sit around for several hours.

If that doesn't work, consider ways around it. While drinking a potion is considered the standard application method, it doesn't have to be the only way. Dribble the potion over the other character's wounds, or maybe even just splash it at them. It is rules-legal to administer a potion to someone who is engaged in the middle of melee, and I can't see whatever they are fighting taking a step back to let someone heal their opponent.

Additionally, there's always the "it's magic" excuse. Perhaps part of the magic causes the person to swallow it automatically, or maybe it works like mouthwash - swish it around in your mouth so the magic soaks in, then spit out the now-useless liquid.

It's considered rules-legal by the designers. It's reasonable based on extrapolation from other instances when applying potions are legal. It makes the game more fun, and proceed more smoothly.

If none of these reasons satisfies you, then don't allow it.

Answer 3

Actually, I used to be a paramedic and during a cardiac arrest situation (the patient is making death saving throws), we would routinely give some drugs through the endotracheal tube (a tube, used for Oxygen delivery, that goes into the trachea). This is a thing in real life.

In the D&D world where things like healing potions are, by definition, magical, we could say with reasonableness that as soon as the potion enters the character's body (with the mouth being the most common, but you play your character your way and I'll play mine my way), the potion is immediately ingested.

Answer 4

The idea of "administering" a potion to someone who is fighting is so hilarious to me that I have trouble envisioning any use for "administering" a potion EXCEPT to someone who can't drink it themselves.

Additionally, I think it's unreasonable to stipulate that a healing potion is "1.5 pints" - that would be an extremely large "vial".

Every game I have ever played in allowed unconscious people to be 'force fed' healing potions. It might not be extremely realistic, but I believe its within the spirit of the rules.

Answer 5

As stated previously, unconscious, near death characters are routinely allowed to have a healing potion "administered" to them. In my own, old school D&D games, I envisioned (and described) this more like a medic pouring the potion into the wound itself than trying to force the potion down the other character's throat. After all, if the point is to get the potion into the bloodstream (which it may not be, since it's magic) then applying it directly to the wound seems to logically fulfill the requirements.

For the sake of consistency (why doesn't everybody just pour a potion onto their wound instead of drinking it?) I stated (though I made no formal rule) that potions were more efficient when taken internally, so the external application would remain something done only when another player was unconscious or incapacitated.

My players thought that it worked pretty well logically speaking.

Answer 6

Potions can be administered to unconscious creatures

The DMG section which give the general rule for potions includes (p. 139):

Drinking a potion or administering a potion to another character requires an action.

With no mention of the character/creature needing to be conscious. That particular matter is further clarified in the Sage Advice Compendium:

Can potions be administered to unconscious characters as an action?

Yes, you can administer a potion to someone else as an action (DMG, 139).

Answer 7

It is common for unconscious people to drink by pouring liquid in mouth and holding mouth and nose closed. This forces a swallow, and therefore prevents choking.