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Let's say you were running a certain AP with an abundance of poisonous plants and creatures spread throughout. Now let's say your group has both an alchemist and a witch with the cauldron hex and an extremely high alchemy score at first level.
I understand how the crafting rules work as far as time/cost required to take supplies and transform them into the kind of poison you can apply to a weapon, however as the AP goes along they are going to be fighting and killing things which provide a great source of raw material to work with.
My questions are these-
1) In this situation would you require a roll to "harvest" the poison sack/gland successfully from the corpse of a snake or some other creature? If so what would that roll be and how would you set the DC? The witch PC has a scorpion familiar, which should allow him to milk the stinger for free access to a very low DC raw material.
2) Assuming raw materials have been acquired, how many doses can conceivably be manufactured from a medium creature? A large creature? A small creature?
3) If the gland is acquired successfully would you consider the material to have a "date of expiration" as they are of course going to rot and breakdown? Would you allow them an alchemy roll to preserve it indefinitely and if so what DC seems fair?
I should also say I don't have any issues about the moral dilemmas of poison in a game. As they are going to be on the receiving end of it fairly often, turn about is fair play and will probably be pretty satisfying for them. As far as I'm concerned it is simply a tool, but (like any other tool) one that I don't want to get out of hand. At this point in the game crafting poison takes an impossible amount of downtime for a group of 1st level PCs, but at some point they may have crazy high scores that allow them to manufacture doses quickly enough to take advantage of. I'd like to be prepared for when that happens (and they are already at 1st level trying to harvest poison sacks from snakes etc).
Here's what we have been doing in our Campaigns. We allow a survival check with a DC equal to the DC of the poison to harvest venom. If you fail by five you have accidentally poisoned yourself. If you succeed you harvest one dose of venom plus one additional dose for every five you beat the DC with. The venom remains potent for 1d4 days. You can use Craft alchemy to preserve the venom. The DC is equal to the DC of the poison and costs 50 gp times the DC of the poison in alchemical components and requiring one day of uninterrupted work in an alchemist's lab, if you field craft the DC is five higher. If successful the poison is preserved indefinitely or until used. A failed check ruins the entire batch. You can also preserve the poison using Gentle repose.
Let's say you were running a certain AP with an abundance of poisonous plants and creatures spread throughout. Now let's say your group has both an alchemist and a witch with the cauldron hex and an extremely high alchemy score at first level.
I understand how the crafting rules work as far as time/cost required to take supplies and transform them into the kind of poison you can apply to a weapon, however as the AP goes along they are going to be fighting and killing things which provide a great source of raw material to work with.
My questions are these-
1) In this situation would you require a roll to "harvest" the poison sack/gland successfully from the corpse of a snake or some other creature? If so what would that roll be and how would you set the DC? The witch PC has a scorpion familiar, which should allow him to milk the stinger for free access to a very low DC raw material.
2) Assuming raw materials have been acquired, how many doses can conceivably be manufactured from a medium creature? A large creature? A small creature?
3) If the gland is acquired successfully would you consider the material to have a "date of expiration" as they are of course going to rot and breakdown? Would you allow them an alchemy roll to preserve it indefinitely and if so what DC seems fair?
I should also say I don't have any issues about the moral dilemmas of poison in a game. As they are going to be on the receiving end of it fairly often, turn about is fair play and will probably be pretty satisfying for them. As far as I'm concerned it is simply a tool, but (like any other tool) one that I don't want to get out of hand. At this point in the game crafting poison takes an impossible amount of downtime for a group of 1st level PCs, but at some point they may have crazy high scores that allow them to manufacture doses quickly enough to take advantage of. I'd like to be prepared for when that happens (and they are already at 1st level trying to harvest poison sacks from snakes etc).
If you look at the violet fungus in the bestiary there's some instructions for harvesting its poison. I'd use that as sort of a starting point for similar things.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/plants/violet-fungusOne of the things you can do is require certain costly reagents to preserve the poison(like they do in the example there)- this can help clamp down on potential abuse of costless poisons. I would go with a Craft (alchemy) check or possibly a Survival check. Remember the witch will also risk exposing herself to any poison every times he tries to use or harvest it- as will the alchemist before he gets the second level poison use ability.
Another thing you can do is to figure in the cost of a critter's poison as its treasure value for its CR.
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Hey Ith,
This is what I came up with a while ago:
Extract Poisons
You can extract poisons from creatures you have killed.
Prerequisite: 1 rank Heal
Benefit: You can make a special Heal check to extract poison from a recently slain creature. The DC for this check is 10 + the DC of the poison, on a successful check one dose of poison is extracted plus one additional dose for every 5 points by which the your check exceeds the DC. A poison extracted in this fashion remains potent 1 hour unless a successful craft (alchemy) check is made to stabilize the poison. You must spend 1/2 the normal crafting cost to stabilize the poison and the DC to stabilize the poison is equal to the poison’s DC. Characters handling poison in this fashion have a 5% chance of being exposed to the poison unless they have the poison use class feature.
Normal: Characters cannot use poisons from slain creatures.
I think a simple Survival or Heal check should be all that's necessary. Survival lets you gather food in the wilderness and presumably prepare it in some fashion for consumption and/or storage and Heal lets you deal with wounds and blood and such, including poisoning, so either would apply to the actual harvesting. Craft Alchemy would let you stabilize the toxins for later purification. Yes, there'd be a chance of you poisoning yourself, but if you've got the poison use class skill (as with an alchemist) or are just taking sensible precautions you should be fine, especially if you use something like Mage Hand or Unseen Servant to do the actual manipulation, or even Prestidigitation to do cleaning and washing.
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Thanks for the advice guys. Some great ideas which I'm going to stir all together for our own house rule:
You can make a special Heal check to extract poison from a recently slain creature. The DC for this check is 10 + the DC of the poison, on a successful check one dose of poison is extracted plus one additional dose for every 5 points by which the your check exceeds the DC to a maximum of:Tiny 2 doses
Small 4 doses
Medium 8 doses
Large 16 doses (and so on)Failure by 5 or more ruptures the sac, ruining the raw material. A poison extracted in this fashion remains potent 1d2 days unless a successful craft (alchemy) check is made to stabilize the poison. The DC to stabilize the poison is equal to the poison’s DC and will preserve it indefinitely. Characters handling poison in this fashion have a 5% chance of being exposed to the poison during both the extraction and preservation stages unless they have the poison use class feature. The process of preservation requires 8 consecutive hours of work with an alchemist’s lab. You may voluntarily add +10 to the indicated DC to preserve a venom or poison sac in 4 hours, or +20 for 2 hours. You must decide whether to increase the DC before you make your check.
The spell gentle repose may also be used to preserve a venom sac.
Both a healer’s kit and surgeon’s tools may be used in the extraction process for additional bonuses.
I wasn't so interested in requiring a feat as both characters who will want to do this have class features that are meant to let them do things like this. I can see how you might see it that way using item creation feats as a guideline, but alchemical items don't require a feat to make and poison is generally much less effective/reliable than other one shot items like a potion or a scroll.
I did consider adding in a reagent cost for preservation, but in the end they will have to pay 1/3 of the base price of the poison to craft it into a weapon applicable form and poison is quite expensive compared to their DC. I'm okay with 1/3 and will just consider the cost of materials used to preserve the venom sac to have come from that total.
Heal seems to be the best skill for extraction to me as it deals with anatomy. Survival covers hunting and skinning for preparation of food, but extracting a venom sac is a very different skill. Also the majority of this group is extremely skilled in survival which they will be getting plenty of use from throughout the AP. For us in this AP, I would rather this fall into a different skill that requires some investment to take full advantage of a potentially unlimited supply of poison. I would not allow mage hand or unseen servant to substitute as neither allow for any degree of fine motor skill. If you can't use them to attempt to pick a lock from a distance I don't think they would be of any use in dissection other than floating the whole snake's head or tools over to you. If it were something they just wanted to do off the cuff, I'd probably default to Kevin's method of a simple skill check, but considering these guys will probably specialize in this I prefer the slightly more complex system that allows for ruined raw materials and sets a guideline for how many doses can potentially be made from each poisonous thing they have slain.
Thanks for your help guys. :)
I have to admit, I'm more than a bit surprised that there's no RAW for this...
That said, I pretty much have been running it in a similar fashion to Ogre and Mortagon. I'm guessing there won't ever be official word on this, because it's one of those things they leave up to the individual GM. That's good, from the perspective that it lets the GM's interpretation be unquestionable. Still, I'd make sure to run by your houserule with the group in question before you enact it.
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Yeah- I put it up for discussion. If people have issues with it we'll probably find a compromise, but I don't think it will be a problem.
I did realize after I posted the house rule, that I have basically written it so that there are two ways to potentially lose the entire batch. Failing the heal check by 5 would lose it during extraction, then failing the preservation alchemy check would lose it during that phase. That isn't exactly my intent. Maybe failing the extraction roll by 5 should cause you to lose 1/2 of the maximum. Then you could attempt another roll with the remainder. Allows for one retry.
Yeah- I put it up for discussion. If people have issues with it we'll probably find a compromise, but I don't think it will be a problem.
I did realize after I posted the house rule, that I have basically written it so that there are two ways to potentially lose the entire batch. Failing the heal check by 5 would lose it during extraction, then failing the preservation alchemy check would lose it during that phase. That isn't exactly my intent. Maybe failing the extraction roll by 5 should cause you to lose 1/2 of the maximum. Then you could attempt another roll with the remainder. Allows for one retry.
This is not much of a problem if you allow people to "take 10" out of combat, as would be usual with post-combat dealing with dead monsters.
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The way I see it the poison is something for nothing. Unless you take it out of treasure they are getting a bonus so if they have to invest in a few skills and/or a feat in order to harvest it it's reasonable.
Hmm- do you consider an alchemist crafting alchemist's fire to be something for nothing? He has to pay 1/3 the price of a purchased one and spend time doing it. It doesn't require a feat, but does rely heavily on the craft alchemy skill. I'm wondering if we are having a miscommunication. I don't consider the rolls for harvesting and preserving to be the end of the process, but rather the beginning. I wouldn't allow him to take that harvested gland and smear it on a blade and consider the weapon to be carrying a poison dose. There are separate rules for using craft (alchemy) to transform the raw material into something viscous enough to cling to a blade and it takes time and money.
The heal skill will in some ways be a skill tax. It is a skill that I think a lot of people drop at a certain point, but requiring it for this will keep it relevant for some time.
Really though time is the biggest obstacle to mass production. This is the breakdown on cost/time for crafting I did for one of the players regarding preparing his scorpion familiar's venom as something he could apply to a weapon as poison: (He has +12 as his score and the example assumes he rolled an average of 10)
This uses the Craft Alchemy skill. Base Cost: 100 gp per dose, DC 12
Let's say you got an average result of 22 on your skill check.
22 (check result) x 12 (DC of task) = 264 (number representing progress made in one week)
1000 is the target number to complete this task (100 gp base cost x 10)So you could craft 1 dose of weapon applicable scorpion poison in 26.5 days. (1000/264 = 3.78 weeks. 3.78 x 7 = 26.5 days)
You always have the option to attempt to craft something faster by adding +10 to the DC.
22 (check result) x 22 (DC of task) = 484 (number representing progress made in one week)
1000 is still the target number to complete this task (100 gp base cost x 10)So you working faster you could craft 1 dose of weapon applicable scorpion poison in 14 days. (1000/484 = 2 weeks. 2 x 7 = 14 days).
In either example it would cost you 33.33 gp worth of alchemical reagents for the crafting of each dose.
So either 27 days or 14 days to produce. He'll get better and therefore faster as the game goes along, but I don't expect there are going to be lots of places where I give him even a week straight to sit and refine poison. And if he had that time and used it to refine poison that is time he could have been creating an alchemical or magic item or adding to his spellbook. It doesn't seem like a problem to me, but this is the first time it has ever come up in a game for me so I'll be learning as I go.
Creative Director
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I have a player in my Serpent's Skull game who regularly harvests monster poison. I let him do it because I don't have a problem with it—I generally let him roll a Survival check to extract the poison (another person in the group uses Survival to take trophies in a similar way), with a DC of 10 + the defeated creature's CR for minor poisons, or 20 + the defeated creature's CR for major poisons. (What makes the difference between minor and major is a judgement call I make on the spot). Once its extracted, I let it do its thing—no need for spoilage or anything like that. Too much clutter to track. I might change my tune later, though, if I realize this character's been carrying around gallons of poison for a year or so, but he's also an alchemist, so I assume that he's doing SOMETHING alchemical to keep the poison fresh.
The reason we don't have rules like this hardcoded into the game is because the game's economy doesn't allow for it. Poison has a real GP value, and if you allow PCs to harvest poison, you technically need to adjust treasure values in the campaign to allow for this new source of income. And that can get weird when you have some monsters that have really expensive poison that already have or NEED a lot of treasure.
In my own campaigns, I'm not nearly so much of a stickler for treasure volumes as the core book (and I suspect most campaigns); I don't mind if the PCs accumulate a lot of wealth. I've been gaming with the same folks for over a decade, of course, so I also know the players very well and that makes it easier to keep in mind ways that they might overload the economy...
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Hmm- do you consider an alchemist crafting alchemist's fire to be something for nothing? He has to pay 1/3 the price of a purchased one and spend time doing it. It doesn't require a feat, but does rely heavily on the craft alchemy skill. I'm wondering if we are having a miscommunication. I don't consider the rolls for harvesting and preserving to be the end of the process, but rather the beginning. I wouldn't allow him to take that harvested gland and smear it on a blade and consider the weapon to be carrying a poison dose. There are separate rules for using craft (alchemy) to transform the raw material into something viscous enough to cling to a blade and it takes time and money.The way I see it the poison is something for nothing. Unless you take it out of treasure they are getting a bonus so if they have to invest in a few skills and/or a feat in order to harvest it it's reasonable.
Ah... yeah, I'm onboard with this.
*raises dead*
Pickpocketing causes wealth issues. Steal causes wealth issues. Having a Cohort that can make everything for half price causes wealth issues.
The problem starts when they put certain "common" poisons, like spider, scorpion or centipede gland-based poisons as expensive as heavy armors (a medium spider venom is 150 gp). Another example, let's take a look at the Wolfsbane poison:
Aconitum (/ˌækəˈnaɪtəm/),[2] commonly known as aconite, monkshood, wolf's bane, leopard's bane, mousebane, women's bane, devil's helmet, queen of all poisons, or blue rocket, is a genus of over 250 species of flowering plants belonging to the family Ranunculaceae. These herbaceous perennial plants are chiefly native to the mountainous parts of the Northern Hemisphere,[3] growing in the moisture-retentive but well-draining soils of mountain meadows. Most species are extremely poisonous[4] and must be dealt with carefully.
Seriously, that plant is common as grass. And has a price of 500 gp. You know what costs nearly as much as a single dose of wolfsbane? A shop.
SHOP
Create 14 Goods, 1 Influence, 12 Labor (550 gp)
Rooms 1 Lavatory, 1 Office, 1 Storage, 1 Storefront
A general store.
Arsenic was as expensive as vinegar back in 1400 (very common), so why a dose is 120 gp?
Those prices are unrealistic, and were designed so that players would look away from poisons because of this.
I mean, seriously. It's okay if you increase the cost because on laws, rarity and difficult to extract. But for spiders, you could squash down dozens of spiders and make someone eat them and the poison would still be effective to a certain extent.
You do raise good points when mentioning certain skills, to complement, i will add downtime, magic item creation, item discount/overcharge feats and class abilities, and finally, spells that permanently create things out of thin air. All those cause variations on wealth by level, some minor, others major.
It's fine if PC's are discouraged to harvest, buy and use poisons. But we need that the game mechanics make it realistic for denizens of the game setting to use poisons. For the cost of a single wolfsbane you could hire a group or thugs to beat someone to death.
If we look at Wyvern poisons, it costs 3,000 gp. Okay, fine. Wyverns are rare and really dangerous. But it also means that any group that manages to kill a wyvern should be able to either bring it's tail to be harvested, or have someone skilled enough to harvest the gland. It is worth a lot of money afterall. For a wyvern, this is as much as the standard treasure for the encounter (2,000 gp for CR 6 on medium track). So why not make it the standard treasure for certain types of creatures? I mean, if my players kill a wyvern, i will have to make up something to be this 2,000 worth of treasure ("oh, this wyvern ate an adventurer and has a magic ring stuck on it's teeth").
My question is: Why poisons, out of all things that would cause wealth unbalances, were picked to be nerfed and got unrealistic prices?
Pretty sure there is something in the new Monster Hunter Handbook specifically for this. Let me go home and look it up so I can post what it is and what it does.
I figure survival is a better skill for extracting poison than heal. Healing allows you to treat poison by applying antidotes and other remedies. Survival is rendering a animal into useable parts. If survival allows you to butcher a poisonous animal safely it would make sense that the same skill would be used to harvest the poison. You probably want to safely remove the poison from the animal before butchering it for meat.
Both skills are required to get a working poison. Survival allows you to extract the raw venom from the creature. If you fail the survival roll you ruined the venom. Maybe you punctured the sack so the venom spills out and is wasted. In some cases exposure to air may cause the venom to start to degrade. In any case survival is needed to get the raw venom for making poison.
Once you have extracted the venom craft alchemy is used to turn the venom into a usable poison. The alchemist will add the raw venom to other ingredients to stabilize the poison and to allow it to properly bond to a weapon. Pouring raw venom on a weapon may not work because the venom may simply drip off instead of sticking to the weapon.
Without both skills you cannot make poison. This is really not any different from any other craft skill. Craft weapon alone will not allow you to make a sword. You either need to have professional skill miner or buy the raw metal from someone. Poison is no different.
Both skills are required to get a working poison. Survival allows you to extract the raw venom from the creature. If you fail the survival roll you ruined the venom. Maybe you punctured the sack so the venom spills out and is wasted. In some cases exposure to air may cause the venom to start to degrade. In any case survival is needed to get the raw venom for making poison.
Once you have extracted the venom craft alchemy is used to turn the venom into a usable poison. The alchemist will add the raw venom to other ingredients to stabilize the poison and to allow it to properly bond to a weapon. Pouring raw venom on a weapon may not work because the venom may simply drip off instead of sticking to the weapon.
Without both skills you cannot make poison. This is really not any different from any other craft skill. Craft weapon alone will not allow you to make a sword. You either need to have professional skill miner or buy the raw metal from someone. Poison is no different.
For extracting body parts Heal can also be used because of the anatomical knowledge and how to cut tissues
I'm so sorry about this, I completely forgot about the post until now.
Okay... so basically a feat from the monster manual + an item.
When you use the feat on a poisonous animal, you can use the item to harvest and store a dose of that poison. DC = 20 + Creature's CR. Poison remains potent for 3 days. Single dose of poison, and you get a -1 to checks every successive time you use the item.
For extracting body parts Heal can also be used because of the anatomical knowledge and how to cut tissuesBoth skills are required to get a working poison. Survival allows you to extract the raw venom from the creature. If you fail the survival roll you ruined the venom. Maybe you punctured the sack so the venom spills out and is wasted. In some cases exposure to air may cause the venom to start to degrade. In any case survival is needed to get the raw venom for making poison.
Once you have extracted the venom craft alchemy is used to turn the venom into a usable poison. The alchemist will add the raw venom to other ingredients to stabilize the poison and to allow it to properly bond to a weapon. Pouring raw venom on a weapon may not work because the venom may simply drip off instead of sticking to the weapon.
Without both skills you cannot make poison. This is really not any different from any other craft skill. Craft weapon alone will not allow you to make a sword. You either need to have professional skill miner or buy the raw metal from someone. Poison is no different.
Heal usually deals with humanoid anatomy not snakes and spiders. It defiantly does not deal with plants. Healers are trained in how to treat poison not how to extract intact venom glands from dead creatures. If heal would allow you to extract poison so would professional skill butcher. They actually cut up flesh a lot more than healers.
Also until modern times surgery was very limited. For the most part it was limited to amputation and removal of external growths. Even as late as the civil war a belly wound was usually fatal. There were some attempts to perform more invasive surgeries but for the most part they were not successful. In a Pathfinder setting chances are surgical techniques will be even less developed than in the real word. A 5th level cleric is able to heal things that even modern medicine cannot.
Pathfinder Heal skill is better than modern medicine from our world. It can reliably bring any stabilised character back to full health. It can treat all diseases and poisons. It makes no exception for different species.
(It might make more sense to have a different skill to treat injured plant creatures, but there aren't any rules to handle that.)
That is not a function of the heal skill that a function of the recovery rules. Any stable character that is tended by someone will eventually fully recover. I can have a character 1HP away from death and if he is stabilized and tended by anyone regardless of if they have the skill heal they will remake a full recovery. All the heal skill does is to speed up the healing. Long term care doubles the rate of healing per day.
As for treating disease and poison all that does it to give the target a +4 on their save. They still have to make the save or they take whatever damage the disease or poison does.
The game is designed to make death particularly those of PC difficult. There are no rules for such things as loss of limb, or crippling injuries. It is also designed to kind of skip over any real impact of injuries other than loss of HP. A character with 200 HP that is down to 1HP does not take any penalties of any sort. I can be one hit away from death and still do anything a fully healthy character can do.