D&D 5E 5E: Pick Your Poison

[CleverNickName]

I like your idea, though I don't share your aversion to ongoing damage. Not all poison needs to deal ongoing damage, not even most. But I wouldn't mind seeing ongoing poison damage as often as you see, say, ongoing fire or cold damage.

Oh I agree completely. And by that, I mean that I would like to see them get rid of ongoing fire or cold damage as well. Combat already takes entirely too long from start to finish, and stuff like ongoing damage or multiple save throws only drags it out further. But I'm getting off-topic.

That said, it wouldn't be a terrible idea to have certain types of poison that deal ongoing damage...as long as they were a rare exception and not the rule. I remember back in the days of the Expert Rules, my fighter was struck by a poisoned arrow and failed his save throw. He took one point of poison damage every turn until treated...it literally became a race against time, as we rushed to get him to a temple in time to save his life. That was an awesome plot twist...but if it had happened every single time someone got poisoned, we would have quickly lost patience.

 

[prosfilaes]

If they must have it, I would suggest the following:
*Realistic time scale. There are very, very few poisons/venoms that have any meaningful effect inside the typical D&D combat timeframe. These things should take time to kick in.
*Difficult to resist. 3e poisons are ridiculously easy to resist. It's okay to have a fort save for half damage or the equivalent, but if you get poisoned, something should happen to you most of the time (leaving more design space for fighter class abilities like mettle),
*Proufoundly disabling or lethal. Most 3.X poisons dealt one die of ability damage, which could end up being as low as one point of damage, and had no other disabling effects. Let's make them scary, and impose long-term status effects and severe damage.

Compare to acid; in most cases, if you get acid on you, you can avoid a lot of injury by washing it off promptly. I have no idea what a cone of cold is; I suppose getting a bucket of liquid nitrogen thrown at you could give you some quick surface burns, maybe damage the eyes, but generally cold takes serious time to sink. I'm not sure why or if we should pull poison out for a realistic time frame.

As for damage and long-term status effects, again, the question is why are we pulling out poison for special treatment here? Most things in D&D can kill a commoner, poison included. High-level D&D characters can, and always have been able to, walk off damage that would leave the average person in the D&D world (or in the real world) as chunks of meat. It's easy for weapons or about any other effect in the game to take out an eye or two, but the rules have never accounted for that. I'd rather see acid have more realistic effects as per long-term damage then poison; at the very least, the scarring and burns of acid are more cinematic then the kidney and liver damage poison is likely to leave survivors with. (And a lot of poison has no long term effect; for a lot of scorpions, if they don't kill you, you'll be fine in a few hours.)

 

[slobster]

As for damage and long-term status effects, again, the question is why are we pulling out poison for special treatment here?

I pretty much agree with you here. Yeah, poisons as damage isn't a very good simulation of real world poisons. But it's usable, streamlined, and consistent with abstractions already made in the game world for other effects.

That isn't to say that special poisons couldn't exist whose effects are more involved than that. CleverNickNames' 1 poison damage per round effect sounded like a lot of fun, and as he noted it would get old if it happened all the time. A quest to find the cure to a poison that is slowly killing the king would be great, even if poisons usually just did 1d10 damage and could be effectively circumvented with a cure light wounds spell.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Compare to acid; in most cases, if you get acid on you, you can avoid a lot of injury by washing it off promptly. I have no idea what a cone of cold is; I suppose getting a bucket of liquid nitrogen thrown at you could give you some quick surface burns, maybe damage the eyes, but generally cold takes serious time to sink. I'm not sure why or if we should pull poison out for a realistic time frame.

As for damage and long-term status effects, again, the question is why are we pulling out poison for special treatment here? Most things in D&D can kill a commoner, poison included. High-level D&D characters can, and always have been able to, walk off damage that would leave the average person in the D&D world (or in the real world) as chunks of meat. It's easy for weapons or about any other effect in the game to take out an eye or two, but the rules have never accounted for that. I'd rather see acid have more realistic effects as per long-term damage then poison; at the very least, the scarring and burns of acid are more cinematic then the kidney and liver damage poison is likely to leave survivors with. (And a lot of poison has no long term effect; for a lot of scorpions, if they don't kill you, you'll be fine in a few hours.)

Your argument appears to be that "damage in general is not well-handled in D&D, so why should poison damage be"? While it is logically sound, I don't agree with it. I would rather see all damage handled in a more grounded and balanced fashion. Moreover, poison has already been singled out by 1. the rules (because it deals ability damage) and 2. this thread, which is why I'm discussing it the way I am and not having a broader discussion about health systems and conditions. A good health system would have neither the wizards that get killed by cats nor the fighters who fall off cliffs and walk away, but that's a different discussion. In this thread, I'm merely talking about how poison can be made more relevant in the current rules paradigm.

As to what a cone of cold is, it's magic. There's a reason why it's very rare to take cold damage without magic.

And about high-level characters in D&D being able to survive ridiculous amounts of harm, this hasn't always been the case, and 5e has been suggested to have a less steep power curve than previous editions.

 

[Dausuul]

As for damage and long-term status effects, again, the question is why are we pulling out poison for special treatment here?

Actually, I think the question is, why are we not pulling out the others for special treatment? I agree that acid should not deal all its damage in one big glob. It should take time, and you should be able to wash it off to stop the damage. Cold damage almost invariably results from a magical chill (draining the heat from an area), and should be associated with suitable status effects--slowed, fatigued, what have you.

These would make cold and acid effects much more distinctive and flavorful. (Please note that I am not including "verisimilitude" on the list of reasons.) But if we can't get distinctive, flavorful cold and acid, we can at least have distinctive and flavorful poison.

 

[RangerWickett]

I would have poison work in two stages - per round, and per ten minutes.

Injurious Poison
Something like snake venom that kills tissue.

It has a damage rating, so say a cobra's bite does 1 damage, and its poison does 10. When you're bitten, you just take the 1 damage. Then you make a save each round (Usually, like, d20+Con vs. DC 10 or something). If you fail, you take the damage, and then you're done. If you succeed, you keep rolling, turn after turn, until you fail and take the damage.

Then, every ten minutes you make another save, and you take the damage again whenever you fail. If you succeed, no damage. And if you succeed by 5 or more, the poison has run its course and you'll live.

Basically, if you're a tough mofo, or just lucky, the bite will take a while to affect you, but eventually it's going to hit you unless someone gives you anti-venom or uses magic to heal you. Then afterward you've still got to worry about poison slowly killing you.

Status Poison
Something like drow poison.

It's initial effect would be to weaken you, and you make a save each round to avoid unconsciousness. Then every 10 minutes you'd make another save to wake up.

 

[RangerWickett]

By the way, I'd love it if wizard magic attacks didn't just smash you with HP damage, but instead created weird conditions that mess you up.

Acid Arrow - You're taking ongoing damage until you can wipe it off.

Cone of Cold - You take a bit of cold damage now, but you're trapped in ice and keep taking damage until you break out.

Fireball - You are on fire, and will keep burning until you take an action to put yourself out.

For all these things, they should point out some sort of tier, like: ongoing 5 damage means you've been hit on a limb, so maybe your sleeve's on fire of your pants are melting. Ongoing 10 has hit a solid portion of your body, so perhaps your whole back is burning, or your lower body is encased in ice. Ongoing 15 means your entire body's in trouble -- you're immolated, or completely coated in acid, or about to be frozen solid.

Lightning might do limited damage but knock you prone or daze you.

 

[howandwhy99]

What's not to like about Poison?

I like Save or Die poisons. DCs are set by the potency. If you want to get fancy, you can do the same with onset times. Sleep & Paralyzation poisons are less common usually, but an option. I'd prefer if they modeled poison, a blanket term really, after common substances understood to be poison first. Then further differentiations could be made for more interesting encounters with it, even magical varieties.

To answer the OP's questions:
1. Magic isn't so rare as highly dangerous. Saves used to be involved just in the safe handling of it. Using poison required a save from the user as well. Only Assassins had Poison Use: Yes, and it was sold through the Assassin's Guild only (by the DMG iirc). Using poison has a big advantage when we seek to kill. Balancing that in the game is definitely necessary (use to be a confusion effect, could be a morale one).

2. M-Us brew potions with the help of an alchemist and only then when higher level. Poisons are made by high level Assassins, but might require an alchemist too. Either way, both of these should be expensive and poisons not easily purchasable in most lawfully aligned lands.

3. Envenoming a weapon is part of the game, but still counts as poison use, so a save is required. I think it only gets one hit per application and applying isn't something quickly and easily performed. I believe there is a shelf life on envenomed weapons too. (Cue the envenoming sheath magic item again )

 

[GreyICE]

By the way, I'd love it if wizard magic attacks didn't just smash you with HP damage, but instead created weird conditions that mess you up.

Acid Arrow - You're taking ongoing damage until you can wipe it off.

Cone of Cold - You take a bit of cold damage now, but you're trapped in ice and keep taking damage until you break out.

Fireball - You are on fire, and will keep burning until you take an action to put yourself out.

For all these things, they should point out some sort of tier, like: ongoing 5 damage means you've been hit on a limb, so maybe your sleeve's on fire of your pants are melting. Ongoing 10 has hit a solid portion of your body, so perhaps your whole back is burning, or your lower body is encased in ice. Ongoing 15 means your entire body's in trouble -- you're immolated, or completely coated in acid, or about to be frozen solid.

Lightning might do limited damage but knock you prone or daze you.

Given that one of the largest complaints from virtually everyone regarding 4E was the number of fiddly conditionals and statuses, I find it unlikely that it would work this way.

In an ideal world where there was a computer sitting there tracking everything it would work great, but table play experience of that sort of thing has been... questionable.

 

[prosfilaes]

Your argument appears to be that "damage in general is not well-handled in D&D, so why should poison damage be"?

It is well-handled; it's handled abstractly. One of the annoying aspects of D&D 3 is having a host of effects all of which have their own durations and own modifiers to keep track of. Making a host of damage effects that added to that problem would not make the game more enjoyable for me, I think.

And about high-level characters in D&D being able to survive ridiculous amounts of harm

I don't know about OD&D, but the whole walking off a cliff thing comes from AD&D 1.