Do you guys pay attention to poison and potion onset times?

[Lanefan]

@rgard I never forget that table. (Un)Fortunately, neither do my players; I can't remember the last time someone tried knocking back a second potion while a first was still in effect.

 

[rgard]

Fun stuff. I use it in my 3.5 campaign I run now. Back in the early 80s when we discovered the table we of course had to try it out. One of my slightly disposable characters (an anti-paladin named Pax I had grown tired of playing) and another player's PC drank potions of something followed by healing potions. The DM wasn't aware of the table in the DMG so we acted coy conveniently remembering there was a table for this...oh no, how stupid can we be? The other player's PC drank a fire resistance potion followed by a healing potion and promptly exploded after the DM rolled the dice. My anti-paladin drank a potion of polymorph self and then the healing potion. The dice were rolled behind the DM's screen...Yep, '00' polymorph was permanent on the PC. The DM wouldn't let me heal any each time the PC changed form, but I found renewed interest in playing the PC.

 

[Mannahnin]

I use onset times for poisons but not in any formal way, and potions always take effect in the same round (but maybe not the same segment) they are consumed.

One thing to note about poison in 1e: the Slow Poison spell, as written, could and would take effect even if the victim was already dead from the poison provided the death occurred less than 10 minutes (one turn) ago per level of the casting Cleric. (I suspect this one might qualify under the "Obscure Rules Often Ignored" heading...)

What this often meant in practice was that even though someone might die from poison during a combat a Slow Poison --> Neutralize Poison sequence applied relatively soon afterward would fix it.

Remember also that the 1E DMG specifies that even for save or die poison, death occurs "within a minute or so", which means Neutralize Poison should work fine if used no later than the round after the failed save.