[RPG] How fast can you drink a potion

pathfinder-1epotions

Pathfinder material appears to have some conflicts over how long it takes to drink a potion.

From the PRD page on Potions:

Drinking a potion or using an oil is a standard action. (…) Using a potion or oil provokes attacks of opportunity.

Potion Glutton feat says, however:

Benefit(s): You can drink potions, elixirs, or other potables as a swift action without provoking attacks of opportunity.

Normal: Drinking potions is a move action that provokes attacks of opportunity.

While the Accelerated Drinker trait says:

Benefit: You may drink a potion as a move action instead of a standard action as long as you start your turn with the potion in your hand.

What is correct? Standard or move action?

Best Answer

The feat Potion Glutton does, indeed, say in its normal entry that consuming a potion is a move action, and that's been the subject of some controversy as to whether that's intended or if the feat should be the subject of errata (and here and here).

I suspect that the feat's author likely just forgot the actual rule on deadline or accidentally mistyped that normal entry, and that potions still take a standard action to consume. I've found no developer commentary supporting a change to the action needed to consume a potion, but I've found none denying such a change, either. Yet changing consuming potions to a move action is important enough—especially at low levels where much of play takes place—that such a change likely would've been announced with more fanfare, instead of being buried in a setting-specific sourcebook in the normal entry of a feat available exclusively to worshipers of a neutral evil goddess.