D&D 3E/3.5 Mearls' 3e Drider: A Hint at 4e Status Effects?

[MoogleEmpMog]

EDIT: The mechanic works pretty well if it's the one complication the DM has to track. I wouldn't release it into the wild as the standard for drow poison, but if I wrote a drow adventure I might use it as a unifying, adventure-specific mechanic.

OK, that's cool, then. As long as there's only one type of token being tracked like this, it goes from being "OMG AWFUL" to "ooh, that's pretty cool."

Either way, it would be an awesome unified mechanic for an electronic game, though.

 

[Kunimatyu]

The token condition reminds me of classic Mearls works (Iron Heroes especially), and while i't wouldn't be good design to have poison points, fatigue points, stun points, etc, I agree -- it'd make a great underlying mechanic for a drow-themed dungeon/campaign.

I doubt 4e will have a poison system that granular, though.

 

[Henry]

So, this is not the standard poison mechanic for 4ed.

Ok, could you tell us more about what is the standard poison mechanic for 4ed?

Or does every monster with poison works differently?

If that works, I will be very impressed.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

The drow poison is really techy, but that is intentional. The drider (and the drow I designed to go with it) all used the same poison mechanic. Their poisons stacked with each other.

It would be crazy to run every poison this way, but in play it was a lot of fun for my group. With the drow plinking the PCs with poisoned blades and hand crossbow bolts, all the characters racked up a lot of poison points. It also made skirmish tactics, drow darting in to fire a volley and running away to wait out the poison, a good move.

Ahh, that explains a lot for me. I was thinking that this particular poison was FAR too weak and wouldn't result in actual paralysis all that often.

With masses of attacks, it's a different story. But it makes one-on-one encounters pretty useless (in terms of being poisoned).

 

[fanboy2000]

Hmmm, I might have to steal this mechanic for an adventure. I'm not a big drow person though. Who would use poison in a Norse campaign setting?

 

[FireLance]

Hmmm, I might have to steal this mechanic for an adventure. I'm not a big drow person though. Who would use poison in a Norse campaign setting?

Dock-Alfar.

 

[Jhaelen]

Please let this be true!

Uh, I'd rather it wouldn't.