Poison - fun, balanced, and deadly - is it possible?

[RangerWickett]

I think we can all agree that poison in D&D does not allow for a lot of the classic uses of poison. You can't slowly poison someone, then lord the antidote over them. You can't have someone slowly grow weaker as the poison courses through their system. In fact, occasionally you can have a person ingest cyanide and suffer no ill effect.

Can we think of an alternate system that would appropriately model how poison works without requiring tons of book-keeping?

 

[Stalker0]

http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/misc/variantcontinuingpoison.html

Best variant I've seen on the subject so far.

 

[JimAde]

http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/misc/variantcontinuingpoison.html

Best variant I've seen on the subject so far.

Ok, I just read it. Score one for SKR for a great handling of continuing poison effects.

The other scenarios RW described aren't covered, though. The slow-acting poison with the difficult-to-find antidote, for example. But you could modify SKR's rules and say that for a slow poison the damage occurs every 12 or 24 hours instead of every hour, and specify that the damage can't be recovered until the poison is neutralized (which makes sense). Adjust the frequency of damage depending on how fast you want the poison to work.

As far as someone ingesting cyanide with no ill effect, I don't know what you can do about that except saying that the poison gets no save or has an impossibly high DC.

 

[Crothian]

I think we can all agree that poison in D&D does not allow for a lot of the classic uses of poison. You can't slowly poison someone, then lord the antidote over them.

No, but you can poison them with poison that weakens and doesn't kill then "lord healing" over them.

You can't have someone slowly grow weaker as the poison courses through their system.

Yes you can, again you use a poiosn that weakens them and addminster it to them, multiple doses.

 

[RangerWickett]

The idea I had was that every poison would have five traits:

Type
DC
Interval
Duration
Limit

Type is the type of damage the poison does (damage, Str, Dex, Int, Wis, Cha). In D&D, heroes can shrug off terribly debilitating injuries, so lethal poisons, even sarin nerve gas, will deal hit point damage, not Con damage.

DC is the Fortitude save DC.

Interval is how quickly the poison affects you. Intervals can be /round, /minute, /hour, or once.

Duration is how long the poison stays in your system. Most poisons, unless otherwise noted, have a duration of one day.

Limit is the maximum damage the poison can do.


Once per interval, the affected character makes a Fort save or else he takes the appropriate damage. He keeps making saves once per interval, until either the poison has dealt damage equal to its limit, or the duration is complete. So most folks will suffer the full effects of poison -- a high Fort save just staves off the inevitable. But truly heroic folks, those with Fort saves so high that they will barely fail the save ever, will survive a day, and get the poison out of their system.

Too complicated right now. Must think of a way to simplify it.

 

[Storyteller01]

The D&D setting is fairly close. Slow, hidden poisoning requires multiple doses (hidden in the food, drink, etc) and the symptoms of the poison are rarely described beyond stat loss.

Use (or create) a poison that has a low Stat damage (1d2 or 1d3) but has a high DC to save (FFG has some nice stats for alcohol, both for measured and extreme poisoning). Or create a feat that allows for lowered stats on standard poison, but with cumulative effects (most poisonings use elements that are clearly poisonous in much smaller than usual doses. The woman who used the 'gas treatment in the tea' trick on her husband is a good example). Realistically, a target isn't likely to notice a -1 to Con on Dex, or they write it off as alcohol or exertion in the right circumstances. Further degredation can then be viewed as illness.

Player cvharacters are a different matter, but you usually have to explain why they suddenly lost a stat point. Few will play along with 'your drunk' or 'your sick'.

 

[FireLance]

Why not just use the disease mechanic for slow-acting poisons?

 

[Sravoff]

The idea I had was that every poison would have five traits:

Type
DC
Interval
Duration
Limit

Type is the type of damage the poison does (damage, Str, Dex, Int, Wis, Cha). In D&D, heroes can shrug off terribly debilitating injuries, so lethal poisons, even sarin nerve gas, will deal hit point damage, not Con damage.

DC is the Fortitude save DC.

Interval is how quickly the poison affects you. Intervals can be /round, /minute, /hour, or once.

Duration is how long the poison stays in your system. Most poisons, unless otherwise noted, have a duration of one day.

Limit is the maximum damage the poison can do.


Once per interval, the affected character makes a Fort save or else he takes the appropriate damage. He keeps making saves once per interval, until either the poison has dealt damage equal to its limit, or the duration is complete. So most folks will suffer the full effects of poison -- a high Fort save just staves off the inevitable. But truly heroic folks, those with Fort saves so high that they will barely fail the save ever, will survive a day, and get the poison out of their system.

Too complicated right now. Must think of a way to simplify it.

Complicated? Not really, best poison system I have seen yet! Complicated? Look at monster designing formulas, THAT is complicated. But any way, good system!

-Sravoff

 

[Sravoff]

Why not just use the disease mechanic for slow-acting poisons?

That would work to....Though the save would have to be more often that a day, in rounds maybe? That makes high DC poinsons really scary for low fort classes.

-Sravoff

 

[Crothian]

That would work to....Though the save would have to be more often that a day, in rounds maybe? That makes high DC poinsons really scary for low fort classes.

-Sravoff

it would depend on how fast you want the poison to act.