Poison rules?

[rushlight]

I was wondering how others deal with the Poison rules in the DMG. I don't particularly like the fact that every poison in the known universe lasts exactly 1 minute. (Or at least, that's how the rules make it appear...) Under the current system, poison is rarely relevent in combat, as most combats last fewer than 10 rounds. Therefore, the only thing poison really does is deal it's initial damage, so it's more like a regular attack and less like an ongoing problem.

Here's the way we deal with it, but I was interested in getting other's opinions on alternate methods as well as how you think this works.

1) Find the Increment and Max damage of the poison. The Max damage is the maximum amount of damage that can be done by the poison. Small Centipede poison for example is 2/2 Dex (1d2 initial and 1d2 secondary), or Insanity Mist is 4/12 Wis (1d4 initial and 2d12 secondary). The increment is the number of the dice rolled to find the damage. Small Centipede would be 1/1 (the first 1 from the 1d2 intial, and the second 1 from the 1d2 secondary), or Insanity Mist would be 1/2 (from the 1d4 initial and the 2d12 secondary).

2) Roll Fort save every round once the poison is active. For every failed save, you lose the increment from the relevent stat. So if you were infected with Small Centipede poison, and you failed your roll you'd lose 1 Dex (the first increment). On the next round, if you failed again, you'd lose the increment again, and so on until the Max for the initial damage is taken. Once the max from the initial is taken, move on to the initial from the Secondary. If for example, you were infected with Insanity Mist and you failed all of your first 4 saving throws, you would have taken 4 points of Wis damage. On your 5th roll, you would lose 2 Wis points, the secondary increment. Since you've taken all the initial damage, you would continue taking the secondary damage until all of that damage had been taken. Once all damage is taken, the poison has run it's course. Passed saving throws mean nothing occurs, and could stop the poison altogether.

3) Of course, it's possible to save out before taking all the damage from a poison. If you pass two consecutive saves in a row, then you have proven resistant to that poison, and take no further damage from that poison at all. Of course you could get re-poisoned...

4) Last, posions that have specific effects (like Paralysed or Unconscious) simply causes those effects. Poisons that have an effect of '0' means that after the initial saving throw, either one minute passes before the next saving throw (if the '0' is initial damage) or that the poison has no further effects (if the '0' is secondary damage).

So, you can see that these rules can be a tad cumbersome, but once you get the flow it brings back the feel of poison. It becomes an ongoing effect that is important every round. Anyone have a better plan that keeps the ongoing feel of poison?

 

[SpikeyFreak]

You would be more likely to find other people with house rules like this in the house rules forum.

I like the poison rules the way they are.

--Core Spikey

 

[Tzarevitch]

I was wondering how others deal with the Poison rules in the DMG. I don't particularly like the fact that every poison in the known universe lasts exactly 1 minute. (Or at least, that's how the rules make it appear...) Under the current system, poison is rarely relevent in combat, as most combats last fewer than 10 rounds. Therefore, the only thing poison really does is deal it's initial damage, so it's more like a regular attack and less like an ongoing problem.

Here's the way we deal with it, but I was interested in getting other's opinions on alternate methods as well as how you think this works.

{Snip}

So, you can see that these rules can be a tad cumbersome, but once you get the flow it brings back the feel of poison. It becomes an ongoing effect that is important every round. Anyone have a better plan that keeps the ongoing feel of poison?

My problem with the way they handle poison in 3e is that poison is ineffective (ridiculously expensive).

I think they overcompensated from the much too lethal 2e poisons into the largely ineffective 3e poisons. I was considering lopping a zero or two off of the prices of the more common poisons and adding an extra die to primary and secondary damage of most of them. I also plan on house-ruling Delay Poison to reduce its effectiveness.

Tzarevitch

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Only in Bond movies and other flicks does poison have any notable effects in a matter of seconds. The most dangerous natural poisons in the world take at least 10-15 minutes to kill a person.

By any real world measure, 3e poisons act extremely quickly. Having any initial damage at all is a significant compromise to cinematic feel.

Personally I hated the feel of the original poison rules. The problem is instant & random deaths are incongruous with the high fantasy feel of hit points. The 3e poison rules make more sense in the context of how we see poison act in both real and fantasy worlds: 1 or 2 doses of poison does not kill you but makes you sick feeling during combat, very sick or dead if you do not get proper attention immediately after combat.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Only in Bond movies and other flicks does poison have any notable effects in a matter of seconds. The most dangerous natural poisons in the world take at least 10-15 minutes to kill a person.

While I agree that poison taking effect in seconds is unrealistic, many natural poisons can kill human faster than 10-15 minutes.

 

[Pielorinho]

I'm pretty sure that some natural poisons are much worse than you describe. Adders and pit vipers have notoriously fast-acting poisons. Cyanide, I understand, kills almost instantaneously. Poison gases in mines act so quickly that people don't have time to move before they're knocked out. Some jellyfish paralyze their victims instantaneously.

Once you get into manufactured poisons, of course, all bets are off. And remember that most of the poisons you can buy from the DMG are manufactured (or at least preserved and concentrated).

Daniel

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

I may have exagerated.

OK, I did.

Cobra poisons take tens of minutes to kill a man usually.

Rock Fish poisons take ~10 minutes to take effect.

Those may not be the deadliest poisons in the world, but they are way up there on the list.

Jellyfish poison works instantly . . . if you are a fish. They are typically more delibilitatingly painful then dangerous. So do sea anenomes for that matter, and I have stroked some of those with my bare hands. (OK, that is more a matter of thick human skin.)

(BTW, natural neurotoxins in the sea are often as deadly as they get. Period. Sea creatures have been poisoning each other for tens of millions of years longer than anything has crawled on dry land. Some of those buggers are very good at their job.)

My point, even if I exagerated somewhat, is typical combat uses of poison, a little something special wiped on the blade or an arrow, would be comparable to what you would see when a large deadly snake injects a dose into your arm, not what happens to a serial murderer when we flood his small sealed room with cyanide gas.

Cyanide definitely does not kill instantly, BTW. It is an ugly, painful several minutes unless you are using massive doses. Massive doses of alcohol kill instantly too, FWIW. As does carbon dioxide.

I think the rules in 3e reflect very well what the typical, everyday kind of poisonings in combat situations would be. There would be exceptions, but those can be adequately covered by calling them multiple doses, or using drowning rules or somesuch.

Exceptions are exceptions. The core rules are entirely effective for what they should do.

I do not object to new rules for a special, custom poison the DM cooks up. I just think the proposition that most poisons need faster mechanics is quite wrongheaded.

 

[Romotre]

How do you feel about the DC's of poisons? Once you get past low lvls, 90% of the poisons only affect them 5% of the time. I sometimes increase the DC's of poisons to make them somewhat interesting. but what about poisons with DC's in the 30's?

 

[Orco42]

How do you feel about the DC's of poisons? Once you get past low lvls, 90% of the poisons only affect them 5% of the time.

Less than that. A one on a save is not an auto fail.

 

[Victim]

I'm pretty sure that saves were changed to include auto success and failure.

Some poisons can kill instantly. A good hit from Wyvern poison can kill an average or sickly man right away. Black Lotus Extract can kill average people that fail the save a little less than half the time just on the intial effect.

As list of combat or trap poisons, the ones in the DMG aren't bad. However, it lacks slow acting stuff, or lingering ones that might take effect each increment until you make a save.