Converting "Real World" Animals and Vermin

[Cleon]

How about this?

How about the following?

Poison (Ex): A rough-skinned newt's skin and many of its internal organs are poisonous. The save DCs are Constitution-based.

Touch poison: Contact, Fortitude DC X, initial and secondary damage 1d6 Dex.

Organ poison: Ingestion, Fortitude DC X, initial and secondary damage 2d6 Dex. If the victim's Dexterity reaches 0, the victim cannot breath for 2? minutes, which may cause suffocation.


This allows Con saves to avoid death, but it's pretty bad for characters without pretty high Con. We could change it to 1-1/2 minutes.

That looks OK to me, although I'd like to lower the touch poison damage a bit (to 1d4, 1d3 Dex or maybe even less), and make the duration of the "cannot breath" a dice roll of some kind.

 

[freyar]

I wonder if we should also reduce the ingested poison's damage while reducing the touch poison's damage. We could do 1d4 Dex on touch poison and 2d4 Dex for organ poison, though that on average only gets 10 points of Dex (max 16) with both initial and secondary damage. I guess that could potentially kill quite a few characters.

Suffocation duration is negotiable, but I decided to go with something a bit shorter. Let's try this version:

Poison (Ex): A rough-skinned newt's skin and many of its internal organs are poisonous. The save DCs are Constitution-based.

Touch poison: Contact, Fortitude DC X, initial and secondary damage 1d4 Dex.

Organ poison: Ingestion, Fortitude DC X, initial and secondary damage 2d4 Dex. If the victim's Dexterity reaches 0, the victim cannot breath for 2d10 rounds, which may cause suffocation.

 

[Cleon]

I wonder if we should also reduce the ingested poison's damage while reducing the touch poison's damage. We could do 1d4 Dex on touch poison and 2d4 Dex for organ poison, though that on average only gets 10 points of Dex (max 16) with both initial and secondary damage. I guess that could potentially kill quite a few characters.

Suffocation duration is negotiable, but I decided to go with something a bit shorter. Let's try this version:

Poison (Ex): A rough-skinned newt's skin and many of its internal organs are poisonous. The save DCs are Constitution-based.

Touch poison: Contact, Fortitude DC X, initial and secondary damage 1d4 Dex.

Organ poison: Ingestion, Fortitude DC X, initial and secondary damage 2d4 Dex. If the victim's Dexterity reaches 0, the victim cannot breath for 2d10 rounds, which may cause suffocation.

If we want a lethal organ poison I think something like a Wyvern's 2d6/2d6 would work better.

2d4/2d4 is enough to kill roughly a half of Con 10 creatures if they fail two saving throws - that seems pretty good odds.

EDIT: We could make the primary and secondary damage different, I guess. Maybe 1d8/2d8 or 2d6/1d6?

 

[freyar]

Remember, it's Dex damage, not Con damage.

I'm willing to bump the Dex damage a bit, though 2d6/2d6 (like a wyvern) might be a bit much for the target CR. Let's say that would be my maximum. So 2d4/2d4, 2d6/1d6, or 2d6/2d6, as you like.

 

[Cleon]

Remember, it's Dex damage, not Con damage.

I'm willing to bump the Dex damage a bit, though 2d6/2d6 (like a wyvern) might be a bit much for the target CR. Let's say that would be my maximum. So 2d4/2d4, 2d6/1d6, or 2d6/2d6, as you like.

Well I did some rummaging around the internet and they are certainly very poisonous, but the only mention of people dying from their poison I could find involved various drunkards swallowing the newt whole. Contrariwise, I found one mention of someone who swallowed five newts and survived.

If a 3E character swallowed a creature that produced ingested poison, do they take a dose of the ingested poison each round until the creature is dead or do they just take a single dose upon "ingesting" the newt? If they take multiple doses, that would mean we could give the newt a more modest poison damage and it'd still be potentially lethal.

 

[freyar]

Uhh, isn't the usual rule 1 dose of poison per bite for ingested stuff?

I think I'd like to set the damage and paralysis time so that some people can die from it, but maybe not too many. Maybe make the Dex damage 1d4/2d4 and we're there?

 

[Cleon]

Uhh, isn't the usual rule 1 dose of poison per bite for ingested stuff?

Yes it is. I was musing whether if a creature uses Swallow Whole on an opponent with a poison defense, do they take a dose of poison each time they damage the swallowed creature? If they do, then I'd be fine having a more modest poison damage.

I think I'd like to set the damage and paralysis time so that some people can die from it, but maybe not too many. Maybe make the Dex damage 1d4/2d4 and we're there?

That's only going to kill a typical humanoid with a below-average Con, though. It needs a wider range to be a lethal threat. How about using a single big dice for the secondary damage - e.g. 1d6/1d10, 1d6/1d12?

 

[freyar]

We could increase the paralysis time, maybe. I do agree that the Dex damage will only paralyze below average Dex, but I'm ok with that, I think. Hmm. How about 1d6/1d10 Dex damage to paralyze more people but still only 2d10 rounds paralysis?

I'm going to guess that the usual interpretation of the rules does not include a dose of poison every round of Swallow Whole damage. And most PCs don't eat via Swallow Whole anyway.

 

[Cleon]

We could increase the paralysis time, maybe. I do agree that the Dex damage will only paralyze below average Dex, but I'm ok with that, I think. Hmm. How about 1d6/1d10 Dex damage to paralyze more people but still only 2d10 rounds paralysis?

I'm going to guess that the usual interpretation of the rules does not include a dose of poison every round of Swallow Whole damage. And most PCs don't eat via Swallow Whole anyway.

I guess that Dex damage is OK, although the "suffocation" duration is likely too short, since they only need to start making Con checks to avoid fatal asphyxiation after the "hold your breath" period of 2 rounds per point of Con.

Something like 2d10+10 rounds would work better, since it offers some chance of an average Con character dying.

 

[freyar]

2d10+10 rounds will work for me.