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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Turanil" data-source="post: 2858665" data-attributes="member: 9646">On another forum there was a thread that can be summarized like this:-- Why poisons cost such insanely high prices?-- To keep them rare, otherwise PCs (and NPCs) would overuse them, which would quickly ruin the campaign.Now, this was in a C&C thread, where poisons in Castles & Crusades cost 10 times as much as in D&D. As such, this discussion probably doesn't concern d20. Nonetheless, it could be argued that a druid could easily find several doses of natural poisons in the wilderness for free, instead of spending 100 to 300 (or more) gp per dose at the local assassin or evil alchemist. In any case, it made me think about the frequency of poison-use in most fantasy games (D&D or others), and whether poison should be hard to obtain or not. So the questions (and my own thoughts about them) are:1) Can poison be easy to obtain in the campaign setting, and if so what will be the consequences? I thought that we could take a look at our real world history. It appears that during the Renaissance, poison was actually easy to obtain and people overused it! Here are some links, plus an excerpt from those webpages:<a href="http://home.comcast.net/~burokerl/poisoning.htm" target="_blank">Poisoning in history</a> (a short introductory article)<a href="http://www.portfolio.mvm.ed.ac.uk/studentwebs/session2/group12/middle.htm" target="_blank">Poisoning in the Middle Ages</a> (a more detailed article about the medieval period)<a href="http://www.portfolio.mvm.ed.ac.uk/studentwebs/session2/group12/renaissance.htm" target="_blank">Poisons in the Renaisance</a> (I highly suggest to at least read this one; you won't consider poisons in rpgs the same thereafter!)<a href="http://www.portfolio.mvm.ed.ac.uk/studentwebs/session2/group12/16th.htm" target="_blank">Poisoning in the 16th, 17th and 18th Century</a> (another must-read!)<a href="http://www.portfolio.mvm.ed.ac.uk/studentwebs/session2/group12/folklore.htm" target="_blank">Folklore Poisons</a> (natural poisons that a druid will know about.)<a href="http://web1.caryacademy.org/chemistry/rushin/StudentProjects/ElementWebSites/arsenic/history.htm" target="_blank">Arsenic Poisoning</a> (so arsenic poisoning was common throughout history...)So it clearly appear that overuse of poison in a fantasy setting wouldn't be implausible. It could add to the campaign's atmosphere, and the PCs would have to keep on guard. In fact, this would even make high level PCs less invincible... Now in such a setting there must be ways to limit the use and lethality of poisons:2) What can be done to limit the prevalence of poison-use in a campaign? I mean, if poison availability is not restricted through a high price, what can be done if many people can obtain poison in the setting? -- Law may forbid the selling and manufacturing of poison. As such, if PCs want to buy poison, they will have first to figure out where and from whom. And maybe all those who could have sold poison are now dead or imprisoned, so whatever they do, the PCs won't find poison for sale. On the other hand, if the PCs find access to the black market, they could by the same token attract some unwanted attention of various criminals, of the authorites, or both. Note by the way, that searching for an unknown manufacturer of poison on behalf of the authorities could be an adventure plot in itself.-- Then, if the PCs want to manufacture poison by themselves, they will need to have some equipment or even a laboratory, and they still can be unsuccessful in their attempt at creating a poison. In any case, obtaining the equipment to manufacture poisons, could also draw some unwanted attention (albeit less so than directly prchasing poison).  -- PCs may waste time into buying bogus poisons from Charlatans who disappear thereafter, or even betray them to the authoities. Do that a few times and the PCs will become wary of trying to buy poison, even if it is relatively cheap. -- DM may rule that some poisons lose potency over time, and thus should be used quickly if they are to be effective. -- In any case, if poisons become easily available in a setting, likewise antidotes will be easily found, so unless it's a rare extremely potent poison that kills immediately, people will have means to countereffect poisons, and maybe to even become inured to them.</blockquote>

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