Poison use and extraction

[Morrus]

I think I must be missing something - is there a section in the rules about extracting poison venom from a poisonous creature?

As far as I can tell - it's pretty easy, 1/20 chance of affecting yourself with it, can be stored forever.

So, if my PCs have just defeated a spider with DC 28 poison which inflicts 2d6 Str loss both primary and secondary damage, have I just handed them an insta-kill weapon? Couple of arrows with that on it will ruin any critter's day, no matter how tough.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

The rules would be the Craft (Poison) rules (you can use the basic Crafting rules, or the expanded ones from Complete Adventurer). Assuming the basic rules ...

Natural poison degrades very quickly, so the PCs could soak their weapons in dead spider venom, and it would maybe work for a couple minutes before it broke down and became useless. This would happen, though maybe slightly slower, if the poison was placed into sealed bottles.

If they want to make a longer-lasting poison, then you have some work to do. First, determine the cost per dose of the poison (for an example, we'll assume that it's 100gp per dose). Then, determine how many doses are in the spider at any one time (we'll say four).

The PCs, then, can carefully harvest the poison glands (a mid-DC Craft (Poison) or Survival check). Doing so they gain the raw materials* required to make four doses of Awesome Spider Venom. Raw materials cost 1/3 of the price of the finished product, so they have (100 / 4) * 3 = 133.3gp worth of venom.

Then, they get to make Craft checks to turn the venom into stable doses of poison. Each week, they make a Craft check vs. DC ... call it 30, based on your poison, and make Check * 30 sp of progress. Assuming they hit DC 30, they make 900sp of progress every week, or 90gp of progress every week. Thus, it takes a little over 1 week of work to turn a shot of giant spider venom into a stable, long-lasting poison.

Doing this, of course, takes a set of poisonmaking tools.

* - Technically, raw materials costs also include things like alchemical stabilizers, fuel for the burners, etc. Charge a couple extra GP if you feel so inclined.

 

[Morrus]

Hmmm... I'm not disouting that, but one of my players did specifically read something out of one of the core books last night which said that poison does not decay. Along with a bunch of stuff about 5% chance of poisoning yourself, etc. Not sure what he was reading, though - either DMG or PHB.

Where can I find the rules you've just summarised? I'd like to have them to hand for the next session.

 

[AbeTheGnome]

rules for poison
that's from the DMG. i'm not sure of the page number, but it's in the index under "poison." the corebooks don't really explain poison very well, and the rules are, IMO, lacking. CAdv goes into a little more detail, but it's still not what i wanted. i ordered a book callled Pale Designs: A Poisonmaker's Guide that covered the topic in-depth. the rules seemed a bit wonky, but it had lots of good fluff. it basically stipulates that you can't just rub your sword all over a monstrous spider's venom gland and the have a poisoned sword. rather, the venom of animals and plants is a result of complex interactions between chemicals both prior to and during delivery. making effective poison from raw venom takes its own check. i use this system from d20 modern (bottom of document), and replace the wealth checks with survival checks to procure venom from plants and animals. knowledge (nature) should provide a synergy bonus.

 

[Morrus]

Hmmm... the DMG rules therefore confirm the way I did it was right according to the core rules. That's pretty nasty.

 

[Three_Haligonians]

Dragon #349 has a Class Acts article called "Poisionmaking Guide"

It details making poison with the Craft: Poisonmaking skill - following the normal crafting rules with the exceptionsthat it deals in GP per week, not SP and the raw material cost can be anywhere from one-sixth to three-quarters of the base price.

The other thing it does is call for a Gather Info check in order to be able to locate the raw materials for purchase. The base DC is 10 and it gives a list of modifiers - examples include +1 per CR of the creature is comes from, if your in the creature's or plant's natural habitat. The local laws on poison use.. etc.

If you make this check by 5 or more, the cost is 1/6. If you fail, you can't find it and if you fail by 5 or more, you have alerted the local authorities that you are looking for poison.

It also has rules on Harvesting: A survival check with a DC equal to the craft DC of the poison is needed. Success equals raw materials equal to 10 sp x your check result. Knowledge: Nature gives a synergy bonus to this when harvesting from plants.

If a creature leaves no body behind after death (the example they give is a Shadow) the DC is upped by 5 and you must make the check in the round after death (a full round action).

Raw materials last for 1d6 days before spoiling. A DC 12 Knowledge: Nature check will tell you exactly how long (i.e. what the die rolled). A DC 15 Craft: Alchemy check prolongs the "shelf life" by one week plus one week per 5 points you beat the DC by. Agains, failure within 5 simply fails while failure by 5 or more destroys the raw materials. You can only extend potency once this way. Magic can be used to though - gentle repose and ungent of timelesness are listed examples.

I really like these rules, though I tweaked them here and there: If knowledge: nature gives a synergy bonus to harvesting from plants, then Knowledge: [relative creature knowledge] should do the same for creatures.

Hope that helps

J from Three Haligonians