Poison rules change?

[Felon]

Personally, I find the way poisons currently work to be the worst of all worlds. Even super-deadly poisons (e.g. cyanide or sea snake venom) do nothing on a successful save. On a failed save, they almost certainly don't kill a PC, and the PC knows it. That leaves him in a tweener situation where the character is neither fine or dead, just ability-score-damaged, and yet that's enough to bring the adventure to a halt because he can't go on like that.

Any thoughts on how poison rules could be modified?

 

[marune]

Any thoughts on how poison rules could be modified?

Poisons & Disesases easily become show-stopper, if they find a way to make them add a bit of tension to the game without stopping it, they have succeeded.

 

[frankthedm]

Poisons should force a greater number of saves over a longer duration [one per 1 / 10 / 20 / 60 / etc... minutes]. Failing saves should sends one down a condition track depending on nature of the venom.

Fatigued
Exhausted
Exhausted & Sickened
Exhausted & Sickened & Disabled {take 1 damage per action]
Dying {stabilization possible, but fail the next save and…
Dead.

Or use disease mechanics; You keep rolling saves until you make a certain amount of them.

basicly I am for poison being pretty deadly, but only after a while. I really liked the way poison was used in the 13th Warrior.

"Just a scratch" becomes "I'm just a little tired" twenty minuts later, followed by "I'm not feeling so good" after an hour capped of with a "Nice knowing you guys" before bed time.