Touch Of Golden Ice

[RUMBLETiGER]

A thought occurs to me.

You have to actually touch the enemy - that means if you wear gloves, or strike him with another body part that's covered with clothing, the hit doesn't count. The average adventurer is stuffed to the gills with magical bling, which prevents him from truly making use of the feat. Thus, until you describe in painstaking detail where every bit of gear and clothing your character has is located, you won't do a thing with the Touch of Golden Ice feat.

First of all, if you touch the armor of the creature instead of the creature, it still works? I would say no...or every time someone used unarmed strike we would roll against normal AC for normal damage and touch AC for that ability. It just feels wrong. However I am not sure either.

Here is how I'd DM this:

This is for all intents and purposes a contact poison, secreted through your own skin.

So, you punching while wearing gloves will not have the effect. You punching the opponent in combat bare handed, mechanics-wize, the player can simply assume he hit some portion of bare flesh, a face, an arm, whatever, no declaration of "I'm aiming for his exposed elbow" would be necissary. If you're punching wearing spiked gloves, no effect, just as a poison that was applied to the inside of a spiked glove wouldn't harm the enemy.
Out of combat, if the PC shakes hands with the skeevy villain-in-disguise and said villain is wearing gloves, RP-wise the villain is most likely not affected.

 

[Empirate]

Actually, most real-world contact poisons are transmitted through clothing, although you can gain a little time. Even rubber gloves aren't safe, depending on the substance. There are substances, like DMSO (Dimethyl Sulfoxide), that go through rubber like water through tissue paper, and what's more, force the cell membranes of your skin to let any solutes pass as well.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

Actually, most real-world contact poisons are transmitted through clothing, although you can gain a little time. Even rubber gloves aren't safe, depending on the substance. There are substances, like DMSO (Dimethyl Sulfoxide), that go through rubber like water through tissue paper, and what's more, force the cell membranes of your skin to let any solutes pass as well.

You're are talking about poisons that would have to have a DC higher than 14!

 

[Dandu]

Dimethyl mercury is notorious for seeping through all but the thickest of protective gloves.

You're are talking about poisons that would have to have a DC higher than 14!

DMSO has low toxicity.

 

[Jack Simth]

You're are talking about poisons that would have to have a DC higher than 14!

Depends on what's considered a dose.

When you're dealing with Human Commoner-1's or Human Expert-1's (most real-world people), you're looking at a Fort save of +0... and most people are perfectly fine with a sufficiently small dose of most toxins, beyond a pesky rash. DC 14 for a small dose - just a touch - would be something that's noxious enough to make most people get woozy (65% take 1d6 dex damage, lose some coordination), and paralyze quite a few people (65% of those who fail the first also fail the second take another 2d6 dex damage - for a total of 3d6 Dex damage, that has a 50% chance of exceeding the 10 or 11 Dex that most commoners are assumed to have; around 21% of human Commoner-1's affected by Golden Ice become unconscious from a single dose....).

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

Dimethyl mercury is notorious for seeping through all but the thickest of protective gloves.


DMSO has low toxicity.

Depends on what's considered a dose.

When you're dealing with Human Commoner-1's or Human Expert-1's (most real-world people), you're looking at a Fort save of +0... and most people are perfectly fine with a sufficiently small dose of most toxins, beyond a pesky rash. DC 14 for a small dose - just a touch - would be something that's noxious enough to make most people get woozy (65% take 1d6 dex damage, lose some coordination), and paralyze quite a few people (65% of those who fail the first also fail the second take another 2d6 dex damage - for a total of 3d6 Dex damage, that has a 50% chance of exceeding the 10 or 11 Dex that most commoners are assumed to have; around 21% of human Commoner-1's affected by Golden Ice become unconscious from a single dose....).

My understanding is DC is whether or not it hits you and/or affects you, not the degree if the effect itself. Dimethyl mercury sounds like it would have a high DC to overcome, but have a low effect, whatever the poison effect is, as if it had a DC 40 to beat, but only did 1 hp damage when it came into effect or something.

But I'm crossing reality and D&D, which I generally try to avoid doing. because there's no point is trying.

 

[Dandu]

Dimethyl mercury is highly toxic to the point where adsorption doses of less than 0.1 mL guarantees death.

 

[Jack Simth]

My understanding is DC is whether or not it hits you and/or affects you, not the degree if the effect itself. Dimethyl mercury sounds like it would have a high DC to overcome, but have a low effect, whatever the poison effect is, as if it had a DC 40 to beat, but only did 1 hp damage when it came into effect or something.

But I'm crossing reality and D&D, which I generally try to avoid doing. because there's no point is trying.

Yes, but consider:

What happens if someone gets 20 doses of a particular low-toxicity substance (they swallowed 2 ml) vs. if someone gets 1 dose of the same low-toxicity substance (0.1 ml got into them through an injury).

D&D abstracts a rather lot of things for relative ease of play. Poisons are one of the things that are abstracted fairly heavily. How much material do you really think is transferred with basic skin contact such as from the Touch of Golden Ice feat? What constitutes a dose?

 

[Empirate]

My original real-world reference was just a stab at the highly unrealistic way D&D handles such things. Realistic poison rules would make a point of saying what constitutes a 'dose', and how many 'doses' ensure what kind of effect. Using several doses at once wouldn't normally be forbidden, in fact there'd probably be a roll to see how many doses manage to affect the target at once. Fort saves (a good enough abstraction for body weight) wouldn't negate poison effects, only slightly reduce them. Finally, many many poisons would be rather cheap, and price would in no way be connected to lethality.

But that would hardly be possible to balance well, would it?

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

Dimethyl mercury is highly toxic to the point where adsorption doses of less than 0.1 mL guarantees death.

Er, oh. I clearly misunderstood what the term "Low toxicity" meant.