Poison, Weapon At-Will attack powers and Creatures from the MM

[DracoSuave]

Right, but if you say that, you also have to explain why the players, or more powerful Drow, can't use the same weapons with the same super-poison.

Cause the guy who makes that poison is a secretive master of his art, who -has to be- otherwise he'd be poisoned by the process of applying the poison itself. The drow have to go to him, leave, then come back to get 'er done.

All you need to tell the player is 'There's a tradesman who is in charge of poisoning the blades like that. Only they know the secret of doing so without killing themselves from the fumes given by the process. Given that if that trade secret gets out, they starve, they're not giving it out.'

If you wanted a martial explanation, you could say that only the Drow Warriors have the secret fighting technique that prevents the poison from being ablated by the rigors of combat, and only they know how to reapply it after combat.

"BUT I WANNA LEARN THAT!"

Sometimes it's easier to keep it out of their hands. A poison master puts it in -your- hands. Maybe they even can have a chance to have their blades coated in it for a while, if they play their cards right.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Sometimes it's easier to keep it out of their hands. A poison master puts it in -your- hands. Maybe they even can have a chance to have their blades coated in it for a while, if they play their cards right.

Which is pretty much exactly why there is a Drow Poison in the DMG. PCs can use it. Its not going to be quite as effective for them as it is for the Drow, but it maintains verisimilitude. DM can drop a vial or two into a treasure and the players get to use it a couple times. Once its gone that's pretty much it, the ingredients and the formula are probably impossible for a PC to get hold of as you say.

And really, if you're going to run some kind of super Drow centered campaign where the PCs hang out in Erelhei-Cinlu, then maybe stuff like drow poison can end up in the PCs arsenal in some form.

 

[sfedi]

Right, but if you say that, you also have to explain why the players, or more powerful Drow, can't use the same weapons with the same super-poison.

What's the reason that in our world some combatants used poison and others didn't?

 

[Thesolinicus]

All other issues aside and not to be a dead Drow er… horse, I like Saeviomagy’s use of the word verisimilitude. I think the reason I have this question (or problem) is I have a visceral or gut feeling that it hurts the believability of the game. A hard thing to do, I know, in a setting where people teleport and shoot fireballs from their eyes and lightning bolts from their arses. I understand that NPC powers may have a different mechanic but I am looking at some very specific NPC’s… and not JUST Drow. If you look at all other creatures (other than the ones I mentioned in my OP) from the MM, there is no indication in their equipment pointing to a “reason” for their poison ability. They all have natural abilities with poison if not an actual non-weapon poison powers. Let’s put the Drow aside for a second and look at two creatures one with a weapon + poison power and no item or equipment notation and then one with notation. So here goes:

Let’s look at the Yuan-ti Malison Disciple of Zehir. It has a Weapon + Poison At-Will Attack and yet it has no magic weapon nor does it have any indication that there is an applied poison. He also doesn’t have any natural poison attacks. For believability factor you can look at its kin. They have natural poison attacks. He is also a snake-man. Now look at the Halfling Prowler. They also have an At-Will Poison + Weapon Attack, two in fact… one range and one melee. They also have a poisoned short sword listed in their equipment and ten (yes a finite number) poisoned bolts for their normal hand crossbow. Now I don’t believe that anyone would say Halflings are known to be by default poison users or that they have any natural or biological reason to have a poison attack, hence the equipment. So it makes sense then to have the equipment be the cause for the poison and if that is the case then for this NPC, losing the equipment should mean loss of the power.

The point has been brought up that the NPC Powers in the MM work under a different “Mechanic” then the PCs. I agree with this to a point. If you look again at the Halfling Prowler (or any of the creatures with a “poisoned” weapon in their equipment of that matter) and consider the magic poisoned short sword from his equipment, you can clearly see the different mechanic at work. If the Halfling were a PC the weapon would only do poison damage on a critical hit or if the player decided to use the Daily Power granted by the weapon. The NPC Halfling Prowler gets the poison as part of an At-Will Attack. That is a very different scenario. The weapon is a lot more powerful in the Prowler’s hands. If there is a passage somewhere that further defines this separate mechanic or maybe an errata, I have not read it so I apologies. All I have to go on are the core books. From what I read I see no reason to think that if said Prowler loses his short sword and grabs a dagger from one of the PC’s belts then he would get his poisoned attack back. Also if you think that he should, what if he picks up a stick or a tooth pick or heck what if he doesn’t pick up a weapon at all? I could be wrong and would welcome anyone pointing me in the right direction towards a clear cut rule that says they get these abilities no matter what. That would at least give me something to point to with my PC and I could at least support the argument that way, since I clearly don’t FEEL like it fits and could not really support it on my own (unless one of you here can convince me or give me an argument to use).

From what I have read specific outweighs general, this has become my mantra to some people, and with these specific creatures or NPC the ability seems to rely upon the equipment. Also I still do not understand why Wizards would list the equipment as being poisoned with some (and in the case of the Drow say “coated”) and not with others, if they didn’t mean for the power to rely upon or be granted by the items. I also think, and this is just my opinion, that having the ability rely upon the equipment may have something to do with their level of difficulty. Maybe they would be worth more xp if they didn’t have the equipment listed. How easy is it to get into melee with a crossbow wielding Drow, not to mention getting the rapier from his hands?

More thoughts?

 

[DEFCON 1]

More thoughts?

My thought (and opinion) is that you're putting way, way, way more thought into this than is really needed.

The drow and the halfling use poisoned weapons. Run them using poisoned weapons. If a player offers up the idea during combat that they want to grab and take away the weapon under the assumption that they won't be poisoned anymore... make a flash decision as the DM whether or not to reward them for that kind of creative thinking. My personal take is always "Is what they want to do cool? Yeah? Okay, then it works this time."

But to concern yourself about "versimilitude" in any form in D&D is just (in my opinion) a waste of time and energy... time and energy better spent creating more cool encounters and adventures to run your players through. If you want any sort of sword combat "versimilitude", play Riddle of Steel.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

All other issues aside and not to be a dead Drow er… horse, I like Saeviomagy’s use of the word verisimilitude. I think the reason I have this question (or problem) is I have a visceral or gut feeling that it hurts the believability of the game. A hard thing to do, I know, in a setting where people teleport and shoot fireballs from their eyes and lightning bolts from their arses. I understand that NPC powers may have a different mechanic but I am looking at some very specific NPC’s… and not JUST Drow. If you look at all other creatures (other than the ones I mentioned in my OP) from the MM, there is no indication in their equipment pointing to a “reason” for their poison ability. They all have natural abilities with poison if not an actual non-weapon poison powers. Let’s put the Drow aside for a second and look at two creatures one with a weapon + poison power and no item or equipment notation and then one with notation. So here goes:

Let’s look at the Yuan-ti Malison Disciple of Zehir. It has a Weapon + Poison At-Will Attack and yet it has no magic weapon nor does it have any indication that there is an applied poison. He also doesn’t have any natural poison attacks. For believability factor you can look at its kin. They have natural poison attacks. He is also a snake-man. Now look at the Halfling Prowler. They also have an At-Will Poison + Weapon Attack, two in fact… one range and one melee. They also have a poisoned short sword listed in their equipment and ten (yes a finite number) poisoned bolts for their normal hand crossbow. Now I don’t believe that anyone would say Halflings are known to be by default poison users or that they have any natural or biological reason to have a poison attack, hence the equipment. So it makes sense then to have the equipment be the cause for the poison and if that is the case then for this NPC, losing the equipment should mean loss of the power.

The point has been brought up that the NPC Powers in the MM work under a different “Mechanic” then the PCs. I agree with this to a point. If you look again at the Halfling Prowler (or any of the creatures with a “poisoned” weapon in their equipment of that matter) and consider the magic poisoned short sword from his equipment, you can clearly see the different mechanic at work. If the Halfling were a PC the weapon would only do poison damage on a critical hit or if the player decided to use the Daily Power granted by the weapon. The NPC Halfling Prowler gets the poison as part of an At-Will Attack. That is a very different scenario. The weapon is a lot more powerful in the Prowler’s hands. If there is a passage somewhere that further defines this separate mechanic or maybe an errata, I have not read it so I apologies. All I have to go on are the core books. From what I read I see no reason to think that if said Prowler loses his short sword and grabs a dagger from one of the PC’s belts then he would get his poisoned attack back. Also if you think that he should, what if he picks up a stick or a tooth pick or heck what if he doesn’t pick up a weapon at all? I could be wrong and would welcome anyone pointing me in the right direction towards a clear cut rule that says they get these abilities no matter what. That would at least give me something to point to with my PC and I could at least support the argument that way, since I clearly don’t FEEL like it fits and could not really support it on my own (unless one of you here can convince me or give me an argument to use).

From what I have read specific outweighs general, this has become my mantra to some people, and with these specific creatures or NPC the ability seems to rely upon the equipment. Also I still do not understand why Wizards would list the equipment as being poisoned with some (and in the case of the Drow say “coated”) and not with others, if they didn’t mean for the power to rely upon or be granted by the items. I also think, and this is just my opinion, that having the ability rely upon the equipment may have something to do with their level of difficulty. Maybe they would be worth more xp if they didn’t have the equipment listed. How easy is it to get into melee with a crossbow wielding Drow, not to mention getting the rapier from his hands?

More thoughts?

I certainly never claimed that Drow etc with poisoned weapons didn't need their particular listed equipment to use those attacks. Sure they do (in some cases monster stat blocks actually say "Requires X" when a power requires equipment the monster is specifically listed as carrying, but I think they didn't consistently do that with a lot of monsters). If you disarm a drow warrior, then he can't use his poisoned attack. If a halfling with poisoned darts uses up all 10 darts, then he's SOL. Its no different with any old monster. If a Goblin Warrior tosses all his javelins at you, then he's out of javelins and he'll have to engage in melee. Maybe not every DM out there tracks ammo for every monster, but we can assume these equipment are mentioned with that in mind.

And yes, if a PC gets hold of some monster's poisoned equipment then he can probably try to use it. He's still only going to do it following the poison rules in the DMG, which may make his use quite a bit less effective than what the monster could do, but its up to the players to decide if its worth it or not. Remember, unless they're really low level they probably have fairly good magic weapons of their own that are likely to give better results overall.

Nothing in the 4e rules is stopping you from achieving whatever you want to do. All we were really ever pointing out is that for the sake of simplicity, if nothing else, its probably better to assume that something like a drow warrior doesn't have to stop and recoat his blade with poison after every hit, that's all.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Nothing in the 4e rules is stopping you from achieving whatever you want to do. All we were really ever pointing out is that for the sake of simplicity, if nothing else, its probably better to assume that something like a drow warrior doesn't have to stop and recoat his blade with poison after every hit, that's all.

I guess you have to weigh up which is more disruptive to your game: some sort of semi-realistic solution, or the damage that failing verisimilitude might cause your game.

That said, there ARE ways to have both simplicity and verismilitude.

One possibility is that the ritual which imbues the weapons with poison for multiple (not infinite) strikes, requires a non-magical weapon to work on. That pretty much makes the choice a bad one for PCs: they'll be expending (lots of) cash to reduce their attack bonus and cause less damage. It sort of applies the same penalty the drow monsters have to the pcs.

Another is to say that the drow are immune to the poison effect, and that means that they can afford to be sloppy in applying it, reducing the action reqiured to a minor. Since the average monster doesn't need their minor action, that basically works out to free.