Basic Poison: Yeah or nay? Lets do the math!
So regular poison requires a DC 10 con save or you suffer +1d4 damage. I am making two assumptions in my analysis:
1) The poison says it lasts for 1 minute. I am assuming that means you can take multiple swings with it and keep applying the poison. If the poison only applies once...I will just say its not very good
2) Like other extra dice, you get to roll another die for poison on a crit.
Lets look at our old Buddy Cuthgar the fighter again.
Str 16, Proficiency +2, using the Longsword Dueling Style (+2 damage) vs AC 16.
DPR: 4.975
Now we add in the poison, and we will say its versus a creature with a +2 con save. We don't have a lot of context on con saves yet for monster, looking at PCs a +2 con save at this point would be pretty standard. That gives the monster a 35% chance of failing the poison and taking the damage.
DPR (Poison): 5.46 (9.7% increase)
Conclusion: Poison adds about 9.7% increase in DPR. To put that in context, a +2 to strength for cuthgar increases his DPR by ~19-20%...so for him this poison is similar to receiving +1 STR.
Lets take Cuthgar up to 20th. Vs AC 16 again. He now has an 18-20 crit range, +5 str, +6 prof. We will give the monster a +5 con save (+2 con, +3 prof) to represent some increase in monsters con scores and likely resistance to poison. Lets see what his normal 4 swing routine looks like:
DPR: 37.7
DPR (Poison): 39.4
Conclusion: For this 20th level example, the poison increases DPR by 4.5%.
Now, that is assuming we get to poison ahead of time. In many cases, we would likely add poison on the first round and not attack. So lets assume the fighter has 6 rounds to attack, and can choose to do 6 rounds of attack, or 1 round for poison + 5 rounds of attack
1st level:
Damage (6 rd attack): 29.85
Damage (1 rd poison + 5 rd attack): 27.28
20th level:
Damage (6 rd attack): 355.5
Damage (1 rd poison + 5 rd attack): 342.6
Conclusion: It is not worthwhile to give up an attack to poison your weapon in a general length fight.
Overall conclusions: 100 gp can buy you roughly 5-10% DPR in the right circumstances. Poisoning can be a good setup technique (before the combat, or when you cannot attack and need to use your action for something else) but it is not generally worth the tradeoff if you have to give up an attack to use it.
So regular poison requires a DC 10 con save or you suffer +1d4 damage. I am making two assumptions in my analysis:
1) The poison says it lasts for 1 minute. I am assuming that means you can take multiple swings with it and keep applying the poison. If the poison only applies once...I will just say its not very good
2) Like other extra dice, you get to roll another die for poison on a crit.
Lets look at our old Buddy Cuthgar the fighter again.
Str 16, Proficiency +2, using the Longsword Dueling Style (+2 damage) vs AC 16.
DPR: 4.975
Now we add in the poison, and we will say its versus a creature with a +2 con save. We don't have a lot of context on con saves yet for monster, looking at PCs a +2 con save at this point would be pretty standard. That gives the monster a 35% chance of failing the poison and taking the damage.
DPR (Poison): 5.46 (9.7% increase)
Conclusion: Poison adds about 9.7% increase in DPR. To put that in context, a +2 to strength for cuthgar increases his DPR by ~19-20%...so for him this poison is similar to receiving +1 STR.
Lets take Cuthgar up to 20th. Vs AC 16 again. He now has an 18-20 crit range, +5 str, +6 prof. We will give the monster a +5 con save (+2 con, +3 prof) to represent some increase in monsters con scores and likely resistance to poison. Lets see what his normal 4 swing routine looks like:
DPR: 37.7
DPR (Poison): 39.4
Conclusion: For this 20th level example, the poison increases DPR by 4.5%.
Now, that is assuming we get to poison ahead of time. In many cases, we would likely add poison on the first round and not attack. So lets assume the fighter has 6 rounds to attack, and can choose to do 6 rounds of attack, or 1 round for poison + 5 rounds of attack
1st level:
Damage (6 rd attack): 29.85
Damage (1 rd poison + 5 rd attack): 27.28
20th level:
Damage (6 rd attack): 355.5
Damage (1 rd poison + 5 rd attack): 342.6
Conclusion: It is not worthwhile to give up an attack to poison your weapon in a general length fight.
Overall conclusions: 100 gp can buy you roughly 5-10% DPR in the right circumstances. Poisoning can be a good setup technique (before the combat, or when you cannot attack and need to use your action for something else) but it is not generally worth the tradeoff if you have to give up an attack to use it.
