D&D 5E Way of Approach for Lotus Eaters?

[posineg]

I want to built a encounter which would be similar to Homers Land of the Lotus eaters, meaning a area that is filled with a non-obvious Poison/narcotic that will effect the players.

Making the simple "poison" as a incense is not the difficulty I have, with the simple condition of "poison". I am finding it difficult in my mind to determine when/If I have the players roll CON saves. I am of the opinion that there is no save but at the end when the party leaves the area and saves for a addictive duration.

Like the Homer story, I envision the poison to be a slow effecting, pleasant substance that the party should not notice until fully under the effect. I will be adding a addictive condition on the poison/drug to further difficulties to the party but the withdraw will be a minor condition and being 10th level the party is full of lesser restorations.

I will be filling the area with skill challenges rather than a difficult battle, maybe a few easy conflicts to have some fun.

Any ideas for the rolling of saves for mandatory drug (poison) subjection and saves?

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

I'd give some initial indications that something is going on - even just a casual mention of say, forest glade, covered in pleasant smelling flowers. That will give the players that "heck, we should have known something was up" realization later on.

You might want to take some cues from the exhaustion condition track - I used that for a situation where my PC's were escaping from a burning "dungeon" (actually the root system of a giant willow tree that was set on fire). They needed to make con saves, and their actions got tougher and tougher as they went - in my situation the ultimate failure would have led to suffocation from smoke inhalation, but in your case, hitting the end of the track might just mean the PC goes into a stupor, and can't be brought out of it without some form of magic.

 

[mellored]

Start off by making it a positive thing.

You drink the substance and your max and current HP increase by 10 until you take a long rest.
The start of the next day, your max HP is reduced by 10. Good thing there's more of this stuff lying around. Drink it and regain those missing HP.
The start of the next day, your max HP is reduced by 20. I need that substance even more!


Item: Cursed potion of healing.
Drinking this increases your current and max HP by 10, but for the next 7 long rests, your max HP is reduced by 10. This effect stacks with itself. A remove poison spell will neutralize both effects.

 

[Quickleaf]

I want to built a encounter which would be similar to Homers Land of the Lotus eaters, meaning a area that is filled with a non-obvious Poison/narcotic that will effect the players.

Making the simple "poison" as a incense is not the difficulty I have, with the simple condition of "poison". I am finding it difficult in my mind to determine when/If I have the players roll CON saves. I am of the opinion that there is no save but at the end when the party leaves the area and saves for a addictive duration.

Like the Homer story, I envision the poison to be a slow effecting, pleasant substance that the party should not notice until fully under the effect. I will be adding a addictive condition on the poison/drug to further difficulties to the party but the withdraw will be a minor condition and being 10th level the party is full of lesser restorations.

I will be filling the area with skill challenges rather than a difficult battle, maybe a few easy conflicts to have some fun.

Any ideas for the rolling of saves for mandatory drug (poison) subjection and saves?

I'm considering the same thing for an adventure conversion I'm doing. I am actually going with a real simple solution that trusts my players to RP; if they succumb to the "poison" they gain a flaw: Constantly craves to have more "lotus flower." In 5e, players RPing that flaw despite detriment to their PC and/or party would gain Inspiration.

One thing to consider is that inhaled poisons are covered in the DMG (e.g. burnt othur fumes, essence of ether, and malice). All of these involve Constitution saving throws at the moment of exposure.

 

[posineg]

Thank you all for your replies.

I decided to not give a Con Save when in the area of the incense and subject all to the "poison" condition, no other effects. The only rolled save was when the party left the area. They were given a DC(16) save, party is level 9 so this was not overly difficult, against addiction withdrawal. If failed, the PC would have the "poison" condition for 1d4 hours as the drug cleared there system.

I know some will not agree with the party not getting a Con Save when entering the area, I felt that the smoke was something that could not be avoided and resisted. Similarly, a party that knowingly walks into a room filled with poison gas should not be able to save out of the encounter because they had no effects after the first step... why should water be the only area that the party cannot breath without making a DC?

As it turned out, the party skirted the whole condition through roleplay and only 2 PCs were suffering from withdraw for 2 hours. We will see how the party responds when they get the faint smell of the incense in the other parts of the story.