POISONS and the production thereof

[dvvega]

Can anyone point me in the right direction regarding the creation of poisons? I can't for the life of me find anything in the books.

Is it a craft skill? If so what kind of DCs are we looking at?

The poison use skill of the Assassin allows you to handle poisons without mishap - does this include the fumble penalty noted in posions in the DMG?

Thanks in advance.

 

[MerakSpielman]

This is covered in extensive detail in the Book of Vile Darkness. I don't have it with me at work, so I can't give you details, but you might want to take a look.

 

[dvvega]

Yes so it is ... stupid me ... I have the book.

So your basic answer is "it isn't covered in the core 3.5 rules".

I am trying to convert a custom class from 3.0 to 3.5 standard rules as much as I can, but looks like I am out of luck with core 3.5.

However adding a craft skill isn't really out-of-core. Great.

How about the Assassin question? Does their safe poison use extend to rolling a 1 on attack rolls?

 

[Grazzt]

Wasnt a Craft (poisonmaking) skill detailed in the rogue's splatbook, IIRC?

 

[Felix]

The BoVD has guides to poisons. As does Song & Silence. "Pale Designs: A Poisoner's Handbook" is all about the art of poisoning, and has 25 pages or so of different natural poisons, alchemical poisons, mineral poisons, drugs, etc.

Craft (poisonmaking) is the skill, and you and your DM might work out synergy bonuses from things like:
Heal [knowing how to heal means knowing how to harm]
Know (nature) [you can find the best samples for sources of natural poison]
Prof (herbalist) [for all of those natural poisons]
Craft (alchemy) [for those alchemical poisons]
Know (geology) [for mineral poisons]

I haven't seen a terribly good system to work out the DC of the craft check though... sorry.

[EDIT] The fumble penalty noted in the DMG is exactly what the Assassin's Poison Use ability avoids. They never have the chance of poisoning themselves when applying poison to a blade. Your DM might rule that there is a chance for mishap when Crafting the poison however... say if you fail by more than 5 you have to make the Fort saves.

 

[Scion]

mmm.. craft (poison) and minor creation.. make your very own poisons for hours a day, and no worry about poisoning innocents at a later time go psions!

 

[dvvega]

Actually I'm the DM and I'm trying to smooth out a character concept that I built with my player during 3.0, and bring it up to date to 3.5

Essentially it was a modified Ranger, inspired by the Archer-Ranger class published in best of dragon for 1st edition, but instead of arcane spells, added cool archery abilities.

These abilities could not be used with any arrows except ones made by the Archer-Ranger. This was the limiting factor (amongst others) to balance out the powers.

One of the abilities was creation of 3 specific poisons (paralysis type, sleep type, debilitating type).

So I wanted to move this class out of "specially designed" mode and into "you can use this core stuff from 3.5" mode.

The player then multi-classed into Deepwood Sniper. Since this prestige class isn't reprinted in Complete Warrior (don't know why) I need to modify it to fit 3.5. I've got a feeling it's not too powerful compared to other PrCs in 3.5, however the lack of reprint concerns me. But then again they reprinted that horrid Initiate of the Bow class.

 

[Darklone]

KPG has a nice section about how to make poisons as well. Plus some more special poisons...

 

[dvvega]

KPG has a nice section about how to make poisons as well. Plus some more special poisons...

KPG?

I am trying to stick to core because at least I know it's balanced against each other. But what is KPG? I might be able to borrow bits and pieces from different places.