Poisons? You're kidding right?

[ForbidenMaster]

1) I've never agreed with price of poison in D&D.
in my games, goblins are notorious and frequent users of poison, so it's dirt cheap for them.
So, to me, poison costis wildy variable, and some *are* very common, as they are in real life! for example, cyanide and arsneic were very common and easy to get until laws prohibited their open sale.

That's a ridiculous cost for that poison!!

2) the effect IS sweet: weakened = super nasty dragon does...1/2 damage to party after being poisoned

For a +28 VS Fort, thats ridiculous? So something that is guaranteed to hit anything pretty much 20th and below should be worth less?

 

[ForbidenMaster]

...That does 15 damage

WIth an attack of +28[/]b vs Fort and weakens the target. And yeah, its epic level so its going to be hard for anyone who isnt epic to acquire, and easy for anyone who is epic.

 

[Zurai]

...That does 15 damage

.. per round, AND halves all damage the target deals.

15 is a lot of damage in 4E, and weakened is one of the best conditions to put on elite/solo monsters (only stunned of the common ones is better, IMO).

 

[direkobold]

.. per round, AND halves all damage the target deals.

15 is a lot of damage in 4E, and weakened is one of the best conditions to put on elite/solo monsters (only stunned of the common ones is better, IMO).

It's not a lot of damage at 25th level. And yeah weakened is a great condition, but 150k to weaken a monster for 1 round?!?!? Yeah, there's a chance they'll fail their save, but once you hit 25th level how many monsters have +2 or even +5 to their saves? (all the ones I looked at when I did a quick spot check)

 

[phil500]

Your kidding right? I mean I've just spent enough money to found a city, and on average I'm not even going to be able to take out a first level character?

you are forgetting that characters gain power in a linear manner, while the economy goes up geometrically.

the econ could have been better imo.

 

[Zurai]

It's not a lot of damage at 25th level.

Name me ANYTHING that does more than 15 ongoing damage. There are a bare handful of PC powers that do it (the single one I'm aware of also damages the user of the power by the same amount), and as far as I know nothing else.

EDIT: Do note that I havn't memorized the PHB, DMG, and MM yet. I'm sure there are a few more than Seal of Binding - but my point stands that 15 ongoing damage IS a lot of damage for an ongoing effect; pretty much as high as it goes. Especially for something as cheap as 150k. Seriously, look at level 30 magic item prices. 3.125 million gold for one piece of equipment.

 

[TimeOut]

The D&D economy has always been odd, but over 150,000 gold? I don't even want to think about characters having that much wealth at their fingertips.

Instead, maybe create a short adventure to find the poison 'in the wild', (or to steal it from somewhere)? Or, given they have access to a lab and/or raw materials, perhaps a skill check to create the poison?

These are all reasonable suggestions. I never liked the D&D approach of "you kill the bad guy, you gain (level * x * a freaking million) gold".

But I never liked the way D&D handled things like magic items and treasure.

Edit: And because this sounds really negative (sorry), I want to add that 4th edition has become my favorite system. I even started to port my complete homebrew campaign setting & system over.

There are just some small bits that need editing, like the magic items / rewards system.

 

[Falling Icicle]

I've noticed that the gold costs of things gets really ridiculous. 150,000 for a poison? That's just absurd. NO poison could possibly be worth so much money. You could buy a very impressive, permanent magic item for that much money. I can't see a poison ever costing more than a few thousand gold, and that should be something so rare and deadly that it instantly kills on a failed save IMO. The same goes for rituals. 21,000 gold to scry one someone for up to 5 ROUNDS? WTF?

I have really liked 4e overall so far, but I absolutely loathe its economy. Not only are the costs of some things patently ridiculous, I really hate the rules for making/buying/selling stuff. It costs the same amount of money to make something on your own as to buy it? And I can only sell it for 1/5th of its worth? Why is my character so unfathomably stupid that I will pay 5x what other people in the game world will? It just doesn't make any sense. They want to charge you a fortune for things but then eliminate any potential for the characters to make money except by killing things and taking their stuff. How lame.

 

[balard]

The price is simple. D&D economy turn around the characters. And if you say that poison is an epic level item, it should cost as one.

If you price the items arithmetically, then its easy to get items of higher level. For the game system, it doesn't matter if you could buy a kingdom with this poison. It matter if the level adequate character cam buy it, and how easily.

 

[direkobold]

Name me ANYTHING that does more than 15 ongoing damage. There are a bare handful of PC powers that do it (the single one I'm aware of also damages the user of the power by the same amount), and as far as I know nothing else.

EDIT: Do note that I havn't memorized the PHB, DMG, and MM yet. I'm sure there are a few more than Seal of Binding - but my point stands that 15 ongoing damage IS a lot of damage for an ongoing effect; pretty much as high as it goes. Especially for something as cheap as 150k. Seriously, look at level 30 magic item prices. 3.125 million gold for one piece of equipment.

Yeah but as was pointed out previously. Powers, monsters, the bulk of the magic items are all usable over and over again. This is 150k for one shot...