Poison rules?

Dr. Zoom · Mar 27, 2002

Here's a link to a variant rule for poison by Sean K. Reynolds.

Continuing Damage For Poison

rushlight · Mar 28, 2002

Excelent!

Thanks Dr. Zoom, that's a much better system than the one I had before! That's just what I was looking for!

CRGreathouse · Mar 28, 2002

Let's take a typical first-level commoner who drinks 1, 2, or 3 doses of poison and look at the fatality rate for each (selected Con poisons only).

Human commoner: HD 1d4; hp 2; SV Fort +0; Con 11.

Greenblood oil: 0%; 0%; 0%.
Bloodroot: 0%; 0%; 0.8%.
Wyrven: 56.5%; 94.9%; 99.6%.
Blue whinnis: 0%; 0%; 0%.
Deathblade: 45.5%; 97.3%; 99.?%.
Nitharit: 59.8%; 89.6%; 97.7%.
Sassone leaf: 74.5%; 93.5%; 98.3%.

As you can see, they're not all that deadly - even for peasants.

Axiomatic Unicorn · Mar 28, 2002

CRGreathouse said:
Let's take a typical first-level commoner who drinks 1, 2, or 3 doses of poison and look at the fatality rate for each (selected Con poisons only).

Human commoner: HD 1d4; hp 2; SV Fort +0; Con 11.

Greenblood oil: 0%; 0%; 0%.
Bloodroot: 0%; 0%; 0.8%.
Wyrven: 56.5%; 94.9%; 99.6%.
Blue whinnis: 0%; 0%; 0%.
Deathblade: 45.5%; 97.3%; 99.?%.
Nitharit: 59.8%; 89.6%; 97.7%.
Sassone leaf: 74.5%; 93.5%; 98.3%.

As you can see, they're not all that deadly - even for peasants.

But is that a bad thing?

In a game where the characters can get hit by swords and giant clubs and fall off 100 foot cliffs and just keep fighting, should poison be more deadly?

I understand that the L1 commoner would die of any of these things, but poisons kill through CON damage and the characters usually have less than twice the CON score of the L1 commoner. So a poison that will kill the commoner would also be likely to kill the guy who can shrug off a giant's axe.

Caliber · Mar 28, 2002

Really, poison becomes nasty when you get the high doses. The 3 doses Peasent Joe is drinking are pretty nasty.

Now let Rogue Bill use his 3 attacks (with Rapid Shot) to throw his 9 (yes folks, nine) Shuriken coated in Deathblade (did we mention Rogue Bill is an Assassain?)

Now you make 9 Fort saves against some poison, taking some significant damage most likely. And you better watch out. Next round he does the SAME thing, and in about a minute you will be defintely feeling it.

Shruiken's shine when you coat them in poison. Or is that poison shines when its coated onto shruikens?

hong · Mar 28, 2002

What makes poison scary is that it deals ability point damage, not hit point damage. Hit points scale with level, but ability scores don't (more or less). This means that even high-level characters will sit up and take notice when someone tries to poison them. Even if the poison itself doesn't kill you, it leaves you a lot more vulnerable to further damage from elsewhere.

Regardless of whether poison is treated realistically in the game or not, this is probably the sort of reaction that's desired.

Umbran · Mar 28, 2002

CRGreathouse said:
Let's take a typical first-level commoner who drinks 1, 2, or 3 doses of poison and look at the fatality rate for each (selected Con poisons only).
...
As you can see, they're not all that deadly - even for peasants.

Well, to be nitpicky, all those poisons are "injury", not "ingested" poisons.

Think about what you've just said, though. More than half the poisons you mentioned will kill a commoner outright on one dose, usually better than 50% of the time. How is that not deadly? Need we also mention what else is happening to that commoner? His Fortitude save and hit points are dropping due to con loss.

Remember, please that this is a role playing game. If you make poison particularly deadly, you make things really rough on your PCs - if poisons were really tough, any enemy with a moderate amount of money can kill the PCs quite easily. The poison rules seem to hae that in mind - poison makes things more difficult, increases dramatic tension, but probably doesn't kill outright. Think about that - this poison is designed to make things more fun!

By the way, mine gasses don't kill quickly, they kill sneakily. The reason miners drop dead without noticing the gas is that the major culprits are odorless.

(Psi)SeveredHead · Mar 28, 2002

I think the save DCs are too low. I wish there were some higher save DCs (much more expensive, of course!, to keep low-level rogues from jsut slaughtering your PCs).

CRGreathouse · Mar 28, 2002

Umbran said:
Well, to be nitpicky, all those poisons are "injury", not "ingested" poisons.

Think about what you've just said, though. More than half the poisons you mentioned will kill a commoner outright on one dose, usually better than 50% of the time. How is that not deadly? Need we also mention what else is happening to that commoner? His Fortitude save and hit points are dropping due to con loss.

I changed my poison examples without cahnging the explanation - he isn't drinking all of them, most are just wounds.

Of the posons in the DMG, only 8 of the 28 have at least a 1% chance to kill the peasant described when he is given 3 doses. I don't see this as particularly deadly...

Weapons are deadly: a dagger wielded by a Str 12 1st-level warrior kills the peasant more than half the time, or more than 90% for 3 "doses".

Of the weapons in the PH, the worst kill rate is an unarmed strike from a small creature, which only kills 61% of the time for 3 attacks (from the Str 12 War1).