Pathfinder 1E Poison for advanced scorpion

[orion90000]

I'm upgrading the Large Scorpion to the Black Emperor Scorpion (CR 11, 16 HD) and I'm down to the Poison entry and I think that the 1d2 str damage doesn't seem potent enough for a gargantuan scorpion. I found where someone else advanced it on d20fpsrd (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/vermin/scorpion/scorpion-giant-emperor) but I've already found other problems with his work.

I can't find any hard rules on poison potency, but I did notice that the scorpions in the other 2 bestiaries have modified poison damages. The best thing I can think of is increasing the die based on size increase (Large 1d2 = Gargantuan 1d4). Any other ideas?

 

[paradox42]

Even 1d2 can stack up fast when you take multiple hits from a stinger and the save DC is high (which it should be, given that the save DC should be based on the critter's HD and CON modifier- both of which increase when you advance the monster to the point of increasing its size). If you really want to change it though, your idea of increasing the size of the die is one way; the other is increasing the frequency (i.e. instead of "1 per round for 4 rounds" make it "1 per round for 6 rounds" or something). Offhand, I can't think of any other ways to increase a poison's potency besides the save DC.

If you add damage to another ability score, then you're changing the poison into a totally different poison- which is actually another thing that makes sense from a real-world perspective, since different species of venomous critters have different poisons. But it does radically alter the balance of the original poison as an ability.

 

[Alzrius]

I suppose you could add a modifier to the poison damage (e.g. 1d2+1), but given how small the damage die is here, you may be right to just bump it up to a d4.