Extracting Poison for Use

[Crust]

Are there any rules out there (or suggestions) for extracting poison from animals and monsters for use on weapons? For example: could an assassin somehow extract the poison from a wyvern's tail for later use (or perhaps for sale later)? Any ideas or suggestions concerning that?

 

[Thurbane]

We recently had this situation in one of our games (rogue wanting to extract poison from deceased wyverns). Our DM ruled it was a DC15 Dex check, with failure by 10 or more resulting in an accidental poisoning.

 

[smootrk]

Thurbane's method seems good, although I would assign DC's based upon the virulence of the particular poison (ie same as the poison DC for saves), with possible circumstance modifiers for rarity or obvious difficult extractions (for instance, from a very very small, or from a very very large creature).

What still needs to be addressed is storage and/or potency rules. Poison extracted from its natural source will likely be less effective and will spoil... unless Craft (poisonmaking) and/or Craft (alchemy) skills are used to prepare the concoctions for storage or use.

Additionally, rules for distilling/strengthening/combining ought to be considered with advanced poison-making skills. Then again, there is the magical aspect of D&D to consider when dealing with poisons. Natural + Refined + Magical enhancements = BioWarfare.

 

[Ghostwind]

Take a look at both Pale Designs: A Poisoner's Handbook (Bastion Press) and Poisoncraft (Blue Devil Games). You should find everything you need in the two books.