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Redclaw said:
As Jemal said, the DMG clearly states:
The viper's poison is listed under the damage from its bite (as 1d4+poison), which pretty clearly denotes that it accompanies the damage, and is an injury type poison. I think it's pretty cut and dry.
For the record, I DM a number of games on ENWorld and face to face, and I fully agree with Jemal's interpretation.
Honestly, I'm not sure why I keep responding, I guess its just natural response. The point of the argument has been scewed away from its origional focus. See, you guys keep argueing that the ruling is correct, however, this isn't relevant. The DM has made a decision and thus it is law. But posts like these are what support my unhappy streak. You just contradicted yourself. The start of your post begins with...
Redclaw said:
As Jemal said, the DMG clearly states:
But then you go onto to talk about nothing actually coming out of the DMG. Instead, you talk about connections that can be INFERRED between the DMG and the Monsters Manual. It all goes back to the concept that someone who believes that the rules governing a creature may mercifully be included in its own section. Now heres the kicker.
Say you DIDN'T look through the dmg to find rules on a monster that came out of the monster's manual. Say you never decided to apply the posion equipment chart, which holds seemingly very little relevence in terms of DCs, or applying the poison to its attacks. Say you didn't disagree that an effect of an attack would in fact go off, even if the attack did damage or not. Its kinda like saying a monster with a burn ability on hit wouldn't get to light its opponent on fire because that creature has damage reduction???
Now, if one decided he didn't like the idea that a snake could poison people without dealing damage, he would logically first off check the monster in the monsters manual, since the source itself would be the most logical choice to research. Then he would proceed to check the back of the monsters manual specifically talking about poison attacks and what they do. Unsatisfied with the answers that this gives, he would then scroll through probably the DMG (cause the PHB lacks posion based information) for anything having to do with poison, and come across the rules governing the use of purchased poisons.
Now, hereby deciding that these rules are far more logical than the posted rules, he would then decide to apply them to the poison attack from the monsters manual and have his ruling.
Now, there is also the option that he already knew that poisons from that chart cannot deal poison damage if they do not damage the oponnent and figured that it applies to the monster manual, and when making the surprising discovery that they do not in fact state such a rule, decided he liked his way better, or figured it makes more sense. And of course at this point he posts the results of scenario one or two and Viola, you have such an argument that all of a sudden becomes painfully clear to anyone who reads the thread why he believes to and his references become quick finds rather than something you need to infer, hunt down, or already know.
So now, in hindsight, this thing is no longer a rules issue, but a cut and dry situation that already has a clear response that you couldn't possibly have an indication of his response until after all of his facts have been presented, which is unfortunate for me, because I already posted before this came up. WHEN IT WASN'T CLEARLY STATED OUT OF THE DMG. WHEN ALL I THOUGHT I NEEDED FOR CLEAR CUT RULES CAME OUT OF THE MONSTER MANUAL. My source wasn't wrong. Whether or not the information I was using was incomplete cause they wanted you to use the chart from a different book never once referenced from the source, or they never intended to cross the rules to begin with, my thoughts on the matter are far more clear cut, since anyone looking at the monster this was based on could find an answer in an instant.
So in the end, to laugh off that this isn't a rules trip up, to say its so clearly cut and dry is an insult coming from someone who didn't do his own research to begin with. The DM didn't rule from what the book says, he ruled on what he figured is a logical conclusion, which is fine. But I can still be pissed off that it screwed me based off of my interpretations, and is currently killing Darius. Cause you can't forget that at this particular moment, I'm not the one in danger here.
So go ahead, call me whatever you want, think of me whatever you want. But if you post without adding any new relevant information to a conversation other than to say "Ya, what he said", you might want to save some room on the thread.
No hard feelings, this is not how I feel about you, but how you approached this situation.
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