Tranquilizer Darts?

[takyris]

Ditto that. I'd totally support some elaborate rewriting of the poisons section. I can flavor-text combat to have it make sense, but when someone does shots of arsenic for fun because his saving throw is that high and hey, what's a little Con damage between friends, then I sort of want things to change. I mean, rattlesnake venom did what, 2d6 total Con damage if you fail both saves? They wanted to get things to reflect the ability to kill you, so they HAD to go with Con damage, but now too many of them are Con-based.

Off the top of my head, a few good changes I can think of -- and I could be so wrong that it's not even funny.

1) Let anything, even Strength damage, kill you eventually -- maybe when you drop to 0 in any one score, you switch over to Con next. SO if something does 4d6 Str, your guy with Str8 who gets hit for 17 loses all his Str and is then hit for 9 Con damage.

2) Customizable onset times. Why not roll for damage, then determine the time, and space it out? You take 8 points of Dex damage over a three minute period. Three minutes = 30 rounds, so essentially, once every four rounds, you lose a point of Dex, your hands shaking more and more as you fumble for the antidote...

3) Either harder saves and less damage or make a Fortitude Partial option. I really hate the idea of someone just chugging the arsenic and having no resulting problems because they're really tough and made both Fort saves without trouble. Sure, I can handwave it -- "You're able to give yourself some serious indigestion as your body forces it through you before it can absorb into the bloodstream, and your years of work with exotic chemicals have given you some natural immunity to chemical poisons..." But a lot of the time, it seems like a stretch.

4) Better ways to recover ability score loss. If it's from the poison, and you get an antidote, you ought to recover (at least somewhat) faster.

Dunno. Random thoughts.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I like the cut of your jib, Tacky

walking to work this morning I had a potentially great idea for knockout poisons which give the kind of cinematic potential you outlined above

Primary effect: disabled
Secondary effect: unconcious

i.e. the primary effect is as if you were at 0hp exactly, and you are limited to either a move or a standard action.

Back to poisons in a more general sense, I think the simple change which I would be most likely to introduce would be Fort half saves, as you say. Nobody gets poisoned and laughs it off, it is *always* bad. Anyone had a wasp sting lately?

Something else as a potential in rewritten poison rules would be allowing poisons to continue to act... perhaps treating them more like diseases, in that you have to make a save every minute but you have to make two consecutive saves in order to throw it off? Wouldn't work so well in conjunction with Fort half ST though, and I like that idea better.

In reality nobody really throws off poisons without treatment, so perhaps it would be best to have the poison repeating every minute and a Treat Injury check of the appropriate DC is needed to actually neutralise the poison (at -4 without the appropriate medical equipment - the old "suck the poison out of the wound" routine). Fort (half) saves are allowed each minute in order to reduce the effect of the poison, but you NEED to get treatment of one kind or another to eliminate it.

Cheers

 

[takyris]

Oh, man, I'd completely forgotten about the Disabled descriptor. Yeah, that's perfect.

The disease progression idea is great. I agree that it might not work as well in conjunction with the Fort partial, because that would be a LOT more likely to kill people -- possibly making some poisons more dangerous than they are in real life. I don't know much about poisons, but I do know that most poisons act slowly enough that people have time to get to the hospital if they know what's going on.

So what if the hypothetical new version of poisons had something like:

Hypothetical Poison
Delivery: Ingestion
Save DC: 15 partial
Damage: 1d4 Dex(2) / 1d4 Con(3)
Activation Time: One minute
Increment: One hour

This means that the poison would have 5 total saving throws. The first save would happen after one minute, and that's when the 1d4 Dex damage would occur (or 1d2 if they make their save). The second would occur an hour later, and would be 1d4 Dex damage. The third, fourth, and fifth would each occur at one hour intervals thereafter, and each of THOSE saves would be to minimize the 1d4 Con damage. You could space out the damage once you had rolled it -- so that after a minute, if you rolled 2, you'd take one point of damage each half hour, and then at the hour mark, you'd roll for the next set, and if it was 3, you'd take one point of damage every 20 minutes (points of damage over a period of an hour), and so on.

Hypothetical Dart Thingie
Delivery: Injury
Save DC: 23 negates / 17 partial
Damage: Disabled(1) / Unconscious or 1d6 Dex(1)
Activation Time: Immediate
Increment: Two rounds

This means that the initial hit immediately disables the target unless he makes a very difficult Fort save -- basically, anyone who isn't a 300-pound bodybuilder is disabled, while the bodybuilder is roaring in pain but still functional. Two rounds later, the target has to save again or lose consciousness -- and even if they save, they take 1d6 Dex damage as the drugs wonk out their system -- over a two-round period.

This is definitely more bookkeeping, and in an FX-heavy campaign with a lot of magic, it might be more work than it's worth. But in a campaign without a ton of magic or magical healing, it might be a more interesting (and more realistic?) type of poison system than the existing set.

 

[Wraith Form]

Anyone have any advice on Tranq darts? Fort save DC? Dart pistol/rifle range? Exotic/Simple/none of the above?

Yeah, I have advice.

PLEASE be careful if you use them to "get the ladies," wink-wink.

Lawsuits can be hell, and you can't prove I did that to her anyway.

 

[afeldspar]

Hypothetical Dart Thingie
Delivery: Injury
Save DC: 23 negates / 17 partial
Damage: Disabled(1) / Unconscious or 1d6 Dex(1)
Activation Time: Immediate
Increment: Two rounds

This means that the initial hit immediately disables the target unless he makes a very difficult Fort save -- basically, anyone who isn't a 300-pound bodybuilder is disabled, while the bodybuilder is roaring in pain but still functional. Two rounds later, the target has to save again or lose consciousness -- and even if they save, they take 1d6 Dex damage as the drugs wonk out their system -- over a two-round period.

I have a couple of questions for Takyris or whoever can help me. What happens if you roll an 18? You're only partially disabled? Or do you skip the primary damage and then roll a save for secondary damage two rounds later?

Finally, I want to use this as a trank dart (or maybe hypodermic) for animals in an adventure I am working on. Too powerful? Even a bear needs to roll a 14 to shrug this stuff off. Or does that just make sense? I don't want the PCs going around tranking everyone after they see how well it works on an animal.

Thanks,
afeldspar

 

[takyris]

Hey afeldspar,

Well, that's using a made-up system that PS and I were goofing around with. By that system, it would work like this:

"Save DC: (D)a negates / (D)b partial
Damage: Disabled(x) / Unconscious or 1d6 Dex"

(D)a = Save DC on first (x) Fortitude saves
(D)b = Save DC on next Fortitude saves

So, for the trank gun:

Save DC: 23 negates / 17 partial
Damage: Disabled(1) / Unconscious or 1d6 Dex(1)
Activation Time: Immediate
Increment: Two rounds

It's listed as an immediate effect, so you'd have to make an immediate save, DC23, or be disabled (not suffering hit point loss, but only able to make a Move OR Attack action each round -- basically, you're a zombie in terms of actions per round).

Two rounds later, you'd have to make a second save, DC 17 this time, or be rendered unconscious. If you made the save, you'd still be Disabled for, I dunno, SOME length of time which I didn't specify because I was making up the system on the spot.

That gives you some flexibility, so you could have something like a random poison like this:

Weird-ass poison
Save DC: 14 partial / 20 negates
Damage: 1d3 Wis(5) / Death (2)
Activation Time: Eight Hours
Increment: One Hour

This exotic poison affects the body's neurochemical systems and, while only mildly hallucinatory at first, is eventually quite deadly unless treated.

It works like this:

12:00 Noon -- Victim drinks poisoned wine

8:00 PM -- Victim must make first save, DC14 -- 1d3 Wis, save reduces it by half, minimum 1 point of Wis damage -- describe it as hallucinations and dizziness.

9:00 PM -- Victim must make second save, DC4 -- 1d3 Wis, save reduces it by half. More hallucinations, stronger this time.

10:00 PM -- Victim must make third save...

11:00 PM -- Victim must make fourth save...

12:00 Midnight -- Victim must make fifth save...

1:00 AM -- Poison has reached saturation point in brain and begins breaking down cognitive functions. Victim must make Fort Save, DC20, or die.

2:00 AM -- Victim must make SECOND Fort Save, DC20, or die. After this, assuming that the victim has survived, there are no further effects.

Make sense? You've got one number for how long it takes to start going, one number for how long you've got between saves once you start, and two numbers for the number of (primary effect) saves you make and the number of (secondary effect) saves you make. So if you want a poison that starts out making you weak (Str) or dizzy (Dex) but eventually makes you dead (Con), you can do that.

It's not perfect, but I'm kicking it around.

 

[Pierce]

I really, really like the way this is headed. I don't have any immediate additions to make (need time to let it digest), but wanted to let you know that there's interest.

 

[afeldspar]

So, for the trank gun:

Save DC: 23 negates / 17 partial
Damage: Disabled(1) / Unconscious or 1d6 Dex(1)
Activation Time: Immediate
Increment: Two rounds

It's listed as an immediate effect, so you'd have to make an immediate save, DC23, or be disabled. ...

Two rounds later, you'd have to make a second save, DC 17 this time, or be rendered unconscious.

Okay, I see how you were doing the Save DCs now. I was reading it as, roll above 23, you negate the poison, roll above 17, you are only partially affected, for both primary and secondary damage, rather than the 23 for primary and 17 for secondary. I like this system. Thanks.

afeldspar

 

[Frank_Vinneti]

Well, here is my take on those Tranquilizer Darts:

Tranquilizer Darts
Damage: 1 plus Tranquilizer
Range Increment: 10 (thrown), or same as weapon

                         Save       Initial      Secondary   Purchase                    Craft
Poison        Type        DC        Damage        Damage        DC     Restriction         DC        Time
------        ----        --        ------        ------        --     -----------         --        ----
Tranquilizer Injury       19      Nauseated    Unconsiousness   8        Lic (+1)          23        4 hr
                                                 1d6 hours

 

[afeldspar]

Well, here is my take on those Tranquilizer Darts:

Tranquilizer Darts
Damage: 1 plus Tranquilizer
Range Increment: 10 (thrown), or same as weapon

                         Save       Initial      Secondary   Purchase                    Craft
Poison        Type        DC        Damage        Damage        DC     Restriction         DC        Time
------        ----        --        ------        ------        --     -----------         --        ----
Tranquilizer Injury       19      Nauseated    Unconsiousness   8        Lic (+1)          23        4 hr
                                                 1d6 hours

Well, I do like the Nauseated condition for a trank rather than disabled, since after one round of disabled, the affected person/creature would be at -1 hp, but I prefer Takyris' increment method of making saves, so you do not have to wait so many rounds before possibly becoming unconscious.

afeldspar