Druid's Venom Immunity

[Arrowhawk]

If memory serves, when medicines (or herbs with pharmacological effect) are discussed, the mechanics are handled similarly to magical effect. I don't think they make a clear rules distinction.

The distinction occurs when you talk about things like Anti-Magic fields. So in this case it makes a big difference whether the effect is magical or not.

We could postulate a magically created poison in which magic substitutes for science during the process of creation

I don't think the creation of the substance is material to the questions raised in this thread. I think the issue is the substance itself. Is it and the effect it has, magical or is it non-magical.

Here's another way to think about it. What happens when Dispel Magic is cast on the poison? Is it dispelled or does it persist? For example let's compare the spell Poison to Create Water. When someone drinks the water from CW, do the suddenly get thirsty if they walk into an anti-magic field or have Dispel Magic cast on them?

Or you could postulate a magical poison which was basically a magical item that cast a spell of sorts, or that had a magical effect on contact. In that case, sky's the limit for what you're imagining.

But is it really a poison at this point? What if the substance magically made you strong for six hours and then made you sick? Is that a poison? What if we reverse the process...sick first...then strong?

I don't see any reason you couldn't make "hot ice" an interesting alchemical plot hook, actually.

The point is whether it's accurate to call what you made "ice." There is no such thing as "hot ice." You've created an entirely new object that is chemically and functionally different than ice. Putting the word "ice" in its name doesn't make it ice...it just allows you to say things immune to ice are not affected by it. But that's just a contrivance isn't it?

A poison substance works chemically. A substance that works magically isn't really a "poison." It could mimic a poison, just like a flashlight could mimic burning torch, but the flashlight isn't a burning torch.

This said, I would personally tend to err on the side of magical poisons making more real world sense, eg, they were created and distilled using magical methods as a straight substitute for the scientific technique and equipment that doesn't exist at your assumed tech level.

Sure, you're talking about creating the poison. There's no reason why poisons couldn't be created magically.

 

[TanithT]

What happens when Dispel Magic is cast on the poison? Is it dispelled or does it persist? For example let's compare the spell Poison to Create Water. When someone drinks the water from CW, do the suddenly get thirsty if they walk into an anti-magic field or have Dispel Magic cast on them?

Excellent point of distinction. And obviously relevant to game mechanics. The DM would need to decide what effect such spells would have, hopefully in a reasonably logical manner. If your character got socked with a chemical poison created with magical techniques that substituted for scientific ones (flame cantrip for heat, spells to concentrate or denature or purify the chemical, etc), I would rule that you're SOL if all you have to combat it is Dispel Magic.

The point is whether it's accurate to call what you made "ice." There is no such thing as "hot ice." You've created an entirely new object that is chemically and functionally different than ice.

Well, if the average low-tech culture encounters a solid substance that is white and semi-translucent and hot, and melts slowly to give off liquid, I'm guessing the moniker that gets tagged onto it will be "hot ice".

Putting the word "ice" in its name doesn't make it ice...it just allows you to say things immune to ice are not affected by it.

I agree, it doesn't. If I did this as an alchemical plot hook, I would not make such a ruling. What something looks like and how it functions can be very different things. Dolphins look like fish, but they are vertebrate mammals.

A poison substance works chemically. A substance that works magically isn't really a "poison." It could mimic a poison, just like a flashlight could mimic burning torch, but the flashlight isn't a burning torch.

Good point, but having generally separate game mechanics for magical effects that mimic poison and actual poison would probably be a bit messy for most folks to want to deal with.

I could see being ambitious enough to go there myself, but most people aren't going to care enough about the fiddly points of toxicology to want to mod the rules that far. Declaring "Poisons work this way" is probably going to be enough for your average player.

 

[kitcik]

This is what I call the troll tax. There's always a few people who patrol every thread and when people stop listening to them or they no longer want to talk about it, they think the thread should be stopped. It's so juvenile I find it amusing.

This is why I said to close the thread.

Topic has been done to death.

All that's left is Arrowhawk hurling personal insults around while trying to adjust his halo.

 

[kitcik]

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...

 

[PureGoldx58]

All of this discussion has brought up some interesting points but really all we get from it is that people can't be happy with "all meaning all, unless the poison says it ignores immunity". Which as a precedent within the game itself occurs far more than once or twice.

In the current game structure there are no "magical" poisons and the distinction between them would not apply towards Venom Immunity, because magical is still under all. Now if you created "magical" poisons they would be able to, as mentioned, be affected by Dispel and AMF which weakens them, because they would still be subject to the other poison suppression/removal spells in addition to these other spells.

 

[TanithT]

This is why I said to close the thread.

Topic has been done to death.

All that's left is Arrowhawk hurling personal insults around while trying to adjust his halo.

Odd, it looks to me like a constructive discussion of how to optionally incorporate toxicology and chemistry into your game mechanics. The only non constructive input I am seeing here is yours.

Obviously biotoxicology is a field of significant interest to me, and I've borrowed some fairly nifty plot hooks from it to flesh out characters and world background in my campaign. I think the information is worth sharing. I'm enjoying the conversation and see nothing negative or insulting about it. If you are not enjoying the conversation, please feel free to visit one of the many other threads on this forum and enjoy one of them instead.

 

[TanithT]

All of this discussion has brought up some interesting points but really all we get from it is that people can't be happy with "all meaning all, unless the poison says it ignores immunity". Which as a precedent within the game itself occurs far more than once or twice.

In the real world, there are two mechanisms by which a venom or a poison can effectively ignore prior immunization. One, it can be delivered in sufficient quantity to bind circulating antibodies and still have plenty left to do its dirty work. Two, it can change or adapt sufficiently that the prior immunization won't actually be cross-reactive to its current form.

This assumes the real world definition of "immunity", which technically should be called "resistance". If you assume a magical definition of immunity that works by an unknown magical mechanism, all bets are off and you can ignore the science completely. But if your world background calls for a physical immunization process as opposed to a magical one, it might make reasonable sense to give a nod to the science. Or not, as the individual DM chooses.

In the current game structure there are no "magical" poisons and the distinction between them would not apply towards Venom Immunity, because magical is still under all. Now if you created "magical" poisons they would be able to, as mentioned, be affected by Dispel and AMF which weakens them, because they would still be subject to the other poison suppression/removal spells in addition to these other spells.

Which simplifies the rules and game mechanics considerably, as most DM's would probably prefer. It's not quite real-world accurate, but neither are fire breathing dragons.

 

[Empirate]

If you really want to bring the real world into a discussion that used to be entirely about the rules cosmos, think about this:

"The dose makes the poison." -- Paracelsus


Did you know oxygen caused cancer? Or sawdust? Did you know that carbon dioxide is quite, quite poisonous to most animal life in sufficient quantity, even though plants thrive on it? Pure water, ingested in great enough doses, will kill you by inducing osmotic imbalance in your intestines. So is a Druid immune to those? What does immunity mean in that case? Can't a Druid breathe, because inhaling oxygen might be bad for his health? Can't a Druid drink too much water?

And don't get me started on drug abuse and the question which drugs are socially unacceptable, thus "bad", thus "poison", and which drugs are socially acceptable. Alcohol is the usual example given (or marijuana in some nations), but let's think out of the box: did you know people can become addicted to sugar? A lot of Inuit have a huge sweets habit, which WILL kill them or at least make them sick if they can't kick it.


See, a poison is quite clearly defined in D&D rules texts, but in the real world, there usually isn't such a thing as a clear definition, even though scientists like to carry themselves as if everything were clear-cut. So please don't bring in your real-life categories. They have no bearing on the question which substances a Druid is immune to in D&D.


Also, kitcik is right about the "done to death" part. Leave well (or bad) enough alone already...

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

I personally am enjoying new, additional information brought to the OP topic, which honestly is rare after a thread has degenerated as far as this one did a few pages back. Usually someone asks a question, gets a page or two of response to the orginal question, than comments to some of the answers occurs, diviating from the orginal post, and then dissagreements on those tangent comments occurs.

Someone coming back to the OP after 9 pages is refreshing. I can read it without needing popcorn.

 

[TanithT]

If you really want to bring the real world into a discussion that used to be entirely about the rules cosmos, think about this:

"The dose makes the poison." -- Paracelsus

As we've been discussing, that's actually quite an interesting game mechanics point. Almost all good drugs have a harmful or fatal overdose. Some drugs have a pretty narrow margin between helpful and fatal. If you postulate a magical mechanism that differentiates between "medicine" and "poison", you have to assume some degree of circumstantial judgment and/or precognition, since both are likely to be true for a given substance. Essentially the magic would have to work intelligently, which could open up all sorts of interesting potential plot doors.

Did you know oxygen caused cancer? Or sawdust? Did you know that carbon dioxide is quite, quite poisonous to most animal life in sufficient quantity, even though plants thrive on it? Pure water, ingested in great enough doses, will kill you by inducing osmotic imbalance in your intestines.

.... I don't think you have a very clear understanding of neoplastic processes. This is D&D Legacy, not Bio 101, so let's just never mind.

So is a Druid immune to those? What does immunity mean in that case? Can't a Druid breathe, because inhaling oxygen might be bad for his health? Can't a Druid drink too much water?

Again we're back to the definition of "immunity" - is it MAAAAGIC and working by an unknown, godlike mechanism, or has the DM chosen to flesh out their world background with a bit of poison lore creatively mined from our world's science? Either way is fine, really - it's a game, and ultimately that creative control belongs to the individual DM. If you are tweaking the basic rules recipe with a tasty scoop of real-world poison lore, then you may want to deal with the "medicine is poison" question a little more realistically.

In the real world, "immunity" should probably be written as "resistance". It's not magic, it's antibodies. Whatever quantity of antibodies a given organism has in circulation will bind to an equivalent quantity of foreign bodies in the bloodstream and neutralize them. If there's more antibodies than venom, you're good. If there's more venom than antibodies, that's bad, and you will see some envenomation effects occurring at least until those antibodies can be replenished. The damage already done won't be reversed, but the new antibodies going into circulation can continue their neutralization work.

We could decide that a magical ritual or monk-like body control discipline taught to druids can speed up antibody production or boost its circulating levels, or maintain them in the absence of biweekly injections. That's pretty consistent with both science and the fantasy world background we're playing in. Whether you care enough to bother with this level of detail in fleshing out your druid character background is entirely up to you.

If you do go this route, you might also want to think about whether your druids would be immune to poisons that are not affected by antibodies, or against which they would not reasonably be able to raise antibodies. Again, potentially fun plot hooks here. An order of Druids that went to great lengths to instill strong resistances vs natural toxins in their members might be awfully surprised by a rival sect of assassins using a non-local type of venom that they hadn't had a chance to develop immunity against.

Or they might get caught with their britches down by a poison type that ignored antibodies. That lead glaze recently invented by the local monastery is really lovely, and trade in it has benefited their economy greatly. How odd that people are dying mysteriously, including a Druid of the local Order, who of course couldn't possibly have died from poison, given the potent immunities conferred by his mystical practices. Shall we investigate?

Plot hooks. Fun stuff. This is pretty much what I play D&D for. Your mileage may vary, of course.

And don't get me started on drug abuse and the question which drugs are socially unacceptable, thus "bad", thus "poison", and which drugs are socially acceptable. Alcohol is the usual example given (or marijuana in some nations), but let's think out of the box: did you know people can become addicted to sugar? A lot of Inuit have a huge sweets habit, which WILL kill them or at least make them sick if they can't kick it.

And there's another great plot hook. If some well meaning druid created a magical poison immunity talent/item/potion/spell/etc that operated on morals, and had something of an imperfect "drug vs poison" filter on its judgment calls, can you imagine how little fun your characters would have in a tavern? Or a kitchen for that matter. And, no medicine for you! Ever. Maybe no food either. Certainly no herbs or spices or salt. My, that could be fun. For the DM, anyhow. Muahahaha. (insert evil DM laugh here)

See, a poison is quite clearly defined in D&D rules texts, but in the real world, there usually isn't such a thing as a clear definition, even though scientists like to carry themselves as if everything were clear-cut. So please don't bring in your real-life categories. They have no bearing on the question which substances a Druid is immune to in D&D.

Quite a lot is known to science, if not necessarily to you personally. While no one needs a D&D game to be a National Geographic documentary, there are all kinds of interesting places a DM can go looking for nifty bits of lore, plot hooks and background information to flesh out their world and character background. It's strictly optional, and you can always go with the simple standard rules on poison if you have neither the time nor the inclination to do otherwise. Nothing wrong with that; it's a game, and the object is to have fun, not to tie yourself in knots pondering things that don't interest you.

But, for folks who really are interested and see some potential for creative worldbuilding by fleshing out house rules with a bit of realism, this kind of stuff is good geeky fun and good background material.

That is all. Have I mentioned that this stuff is optional? If you think it's nifty and want to use it as world background or a plot hook, great. If it's not relevant to your interests or your campaign, don't use it. But please don't begrudge others the right to use it or brainstorm about it if it does look like good campaign material to them.