Poison and 30 point buy/die roll

[BiggusGeekus]

Checking out the DMG pg 80 with the listing of all the poisons. It seems that the ones under 750gp/dose aren't that deadly for a character built on 30 ponts (or one who is somewhat lucky on die rolls).

The Iconics were built on a standard array of 15, 14,13, 12, 10, 8. The "cheap" poisons could kill that character. But once you get characters with an average stat of 12+ they can basically gargle with hemlock.

Do poisons need to be adjusted? If so, how?

 

[GnomeWorks]

Do poisons need to be adjusted? If so, how?

Perhaps base it on concentration of poison, similar to the RL system for determining the strength of acids?

 

[rounser]

Do poisons need to be adjusted? If so, how?

I think they're keyed towards debilitation, rather than death. Putting dents in stats rather than lights out is a Good Thing - save or die is bad for the game...

 

[BiggusGeekus]

save or die is bad for the game...

Yeah, true. But still that kind of takes the "oomph" out of poison. It turns a low-level murder into a multi-thousand-gp endeavor or (worse) a debuff.

 

[rounser]

It turns a low-level murder into a multi-thousand-gp endeavor or (worse) a debuff.

That's true, but it's the lesser of two evils (you know, the scenario where poisoning is always the best tactical option to take out a threat).

It would make sense for assassins (and only assassins) to be able to get a discount on those prices for limited quantities because it fits their archetype, and otherwise pay street price for regular use.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Good point. about the lesser of two evils. I lose. You win!

 

[Storminator]

I think ingested poisons should be much deadlier for the cost than contact or injury poisons. After all, you're not likely to stuff hemlock down someone's throat in a pitched battle, so it's not likely to unbalance things.

PS

 

[rounser]

After all, you're not likely to stuff hemlock down someone's throat in a pitched battle, so it's not likely to unbalance things.

Perhaps... but then you'd get PCs "getting creative" and attempting to get swallowed on purpose by purple worms and such just so they can empty a backpack full of ingestive poison into the critter's gut before they hew their way out.

 

[Mordane76]

If someone was crazy enough to let a critter that can swallow a man whole eat them so they can spend a round emptying a backpack of arsenic into its gullet, I might just let ingested poisons do more than contact or inhaled poisons.


But then, "ingested" technically covers "injected" in RL. I'm drawing a blank -- can one use ingested poisons on arrows for poison damage, or does that only work with contact poisons?

 

[DWARF]

Being a biologist, the poisons I use in my campaign world are like spells; different rules and everything for each individual poison.

None of this "primary damage", "secondary damage 1 minute later" nonsense. I took a class dealing specifically with botanically derived drugs and toxins, so I love this stuff.

One poison might have 4 straight rounds of 1d3 Str damage, followed by another 1d3 at 1 minute, 5 minutes and 15 minutes. Another won't have any effect for 24 hours, then you get 1d2 Cha damage and 1d3 Wisdom damage every hour for 6 hours.
Then something like Napellus mushroom will do nothing for 12 hours, then drop Str. Dex and Con by 4 each; then after 5-9 days, it does 3d4 Con damage.

Some look really weird compared to "standard" poisons, but them's all based on real stuff!