I have two questions:
1) If you use the Agile Feet domain power, can your character ignore an area with caltrops?
2) If a monster has two attacks that are poisonous (for example, claw/claw/bite with poisonous claws), do you roll for poison damage for each attack that hits, or just once for that round? What about when saving against its secondary effects - if it hit and poisoned with both attacks, do you have to roll two separate saves to avoid the secondary effects?
1. Caltrops do not make difficult terrain so are unaffected by the Agile Feet domain power, since all it does is allow you to ignore difficult terrain.
2. Read the poison rules. This is explicitly covered by them:
"Unlike other afflictions, multiple doses of the same poison stack. Poisons delivered by injury and contact cannot inflict more than one dose of poison at a time, but inhaled and ingested poisons can inflict multiple doses at once. Each additional dose extends the total duration of the poison (as noted under frequency) by half its total duration. In addition, each dose of poison increases the DC to resist the poison by +2. This increase is cumulative. Multiple doses do not alter the cure conditions of the poison, and meeting these conditions ends the affliction for all the doses. For example, a character is bit three times in the same round by a trio of Medium monstrous spiders, injecting him with three doses of Medium spider venom. The unfortunate character must make a DC 18 Fortitude save for the next 8 rounds. Fortunately, just one successful save cures the character of all three doses of the poison."
Oh, sorry, I misunderstood/misread the poison rules. *headdesk* Thanks for the help.
No problem I've misread things myself before... the new poison rules have come up a lot honestly... mainly in my opinion because it's new. People are a bit use to 3.5's "complex rules for everything" and when they read something that's simply "Do this and it's good to go" it's a bit confusing.
Wow, that makes a whole bunch of poison attacks seem a lot less threatening.
I remember the 3.5 encounters where most party members took five or more hits with poison, and all would resolve separately. We might be dead or paralyzed within a minute.
Now we gradually take poison damage until we succeed on a save. Much preferred.
Wow, that makes a whole bunch of poison attacks seem a lot less threatening.
I remember the 3.5 encounters where most party members took five or more hits with poison, and all would resolve separately. We might be dead or paralyzed within a minute.
Now we gradually take poison damage until we succeed on a save. Much preferred.
Except that once you're affected, each hit will increase the duration and the DC. Better make every single low-DC-save because once you're on, you won't get out again.
Wow, that makes a whole bunch of poison attacks seem a lot less threatening.
I remember the 3.5 encounters where most party members took five or more hits with poison, and all would resolve separately. We might be dead or paralyzed within a minute.
Now we gradually take poison damage until we succeed on a save. Much preferred.
At the same time, those saves should get harder and harder. In 3.5, I saw many a game where the poison saves were "don't roll a 1, but if you do you die." Now its more crippling over time, but if done right the saves get much nastier.
Except that once you're affected, each hit will increase the duration and the DC. Better make every single low-DC-save because once you're on, you won't get out again.Wow, that makes a whole bunch of poison attacks seem a lot less threatening.
I remember the 3.5 encounters where most party members took five or more hits with poison, and all would resolve separately. We might be dead or paralyzed within a minute.
Now we gradually take poison damage until we succeed on a save. Much preferred.
Why do you say make "every single" save. It's just one save, correct?
Why do you say make "every single" save. It's just one save, correct?Except that once you're affected, each hit will increase the duration and the DC. Better make every single low-DC-save because once you're on, you won't get out again.Wow, that makes a whole bunch of poison attacks seem a lot less threatening.
I remember the 3.5 encounters where most party members took five or more hits with poison, and all would resolve separately. We might be dead or paralyzed within a minute.
Now we gradually take poison damage until we succeed on a save. Much preferred.
You make a save every round for the number of rounds listed. So, if you have someone repeatedly poisoning you, and you fail your first saves when they are lower, it gets harder and harder with each extra dose they give you to keep passing the save.
You make a save every round for the number of rounds listed.
My understanding is that if the poison has "Cure: 1 save", which many/most of them do, then you're done after you make that save. Is your understanding different?
You make a save every round for the number of rounds listed.My understanding is that if the poison has "Cure: 1 save", which many/most of them do, then you're done after you make that save. Is your understanding different?
You are, but if you fail the first save, you suffer the ill effects and then must try again next round. If you get poisoned again that round, you suffer a cumulative penalty of +2 to the DC, with an added durration of 1/2. So, if you don't make the saves quickly against an enemy that repeatedly poisons you, you could end up with very high DCs. A thing to note is that the first save is not made until the poisoned characters turn, even for onset times of -. This allows multiple doses to be applied in 1 round, making the eventual single DC higher.
I designed a character to throw 6 poisoned shuriken at lvl 9. If all of them hit in 1 round, that is +10 to the DC. Even a cheap poison gets up to a DC 21 on the first round. If they fail that, you can do it again for a DC33 save. This is with Black Adder Venom, which does con damage. d2 con damage for 39 rounds is nasty. Granted, this requires all the attacks to hit while you are using TWF and Rapid Shot, and is not really a worthwhile tactic to use regularly.
Don't forget multiple doses of the same poison could come at you in the same round (for example the alchemist with the sticky poison ability poisons the fighter's arrows and he hits you 3 times -- in this case that poison's DC is 4 higher and it will last much longer if you fail your saves).
Now one dose of poison? Not so bad. 3~4 doses of poison in one round? Much much worse.
I've run some numbers. At least for the assumptions I made, for the same base DC and damage, the effects are more severe under 3.5 than under PF.
I started with a DC that the character could make half the time (DC 14 with a +3, etc) and assumed 1 Str damage. Same primary and secondary damage for 3.5, 4 round base frequency and 1 save cure for PF.
With one dose, the average damage for the 3.5 poison is 1 Str, and 0.9375 Str for PF.
With two doses, it's 2 vs. 1.43
With three doses, it's 3 vs. 2.19
Four doses: 4 vs. 3.57
So, if four doses hit in one round, the average damage dealt over however many rounds the PF poison lasts will approach the average damage dealt (primary and secondary) from the 3.5 poison.
One thing that makes the PF poison worse, though, is that the damage is more front-loaded; in 3.5, you had a minute before you had to deal with the secondary damage. In PF, most of your damage is done in the first two or three rounds.
Because the tail drops off so dramatically, changing the base frequency to 6 rounds has virtually no change in final averages. In fact, based on these numbers, unless the person is very unlikely to succeed on a Fort save (the tails persists dramatically when you have to roll a 19 or 20), you could cut out the round cap altogether and make very little difference.
Care to share your math Avalon?
Care to share your math Avalon?
I thought I just did. I'll be more explicit.
One dose: Old poison is 1/2 chance of 1 str damage, twice. New poison is 1/2 chance of first damage, 1/4 chance of second, 1/8 chance of third, and 1/16 chance of fourth str damage.Two doses: Old poison is 1/2 chance of 1 str damage, four times. New poison is .6 chance of 1st, .6^2 chance of 2nd,... .6^6 chance of 6th str damage.
Three doses: Old poison is 1/2 chance of 1 str damage, six times. New poison is .7 chance of 1st, .7^2 chance of 2nd, ... .7^8 chance of 8th str damage.
Was that clear enough?
Yeah but I have a slight exception on the way you present it:
I would present it thus:
Old Damage:
25% chance = no damage
50% chance = 1 damage
25% chance = 2 damage
New Damage:
50% chance = no damage
25% chance = 1 damage
12.5% chance = 2 damage
6.25% chance = 3 damage
3.125% chance = 4 damage
The damage is actually less front loaded. At the front end you have a 50/50 chance of no damage. With the old poison rules even if you made that first save you still had a chance of the secondary save hitting you.
Now your comparison still suffers since we aren't really comparing apples to apples here: The old poison rules rarely had a poison that only did a point of damage or even just a 1d2/1d3. Most of the poisons did a 1d4 or more damage. Which is much more front loaded than a poison that only does a 1d2 every round.
For the sake of real comparison lets compare an actual poison in both systems: Medium Spider Venom. This poison has a DC of 14 in both systems and does Str damage which allows us to avoid the issue of con damage affecting the save throws making the math easier.
In the old system assuming that someone had a +4 on the save throw (to preserve the 50/50 chance again for ease of math) you had the following (doing average poison damage for ease of math):
25% chance for no damage (making the save both times)
50% chance for 2.5 str damage (making the save once but not the other time)
25% chance for 5 str damage (failing the save both times.
With the new system you have the following:
50% chance for no damage (makes the first save)
25% chance for 1.5 damage (makes the second save)
12.5% chance for 3 damage (makes the third save)
6.25% chance for 4.5 damage (fails all four saves)
Yes, the 3.5 poison is definitely nastier -- and even moreso with multiple doses.
Yes, the 3.5 poison is definitely nastier -- and even moreso with multiple doses.
???????
You are struck 4 times in one round by our example poison.
Under the old rules you have a 100% chance of taking damage twice immediately and a 100% chance of taking damage once 1 minute later.
New rules: 75% chance of taking damage once in the first round, another 75% in the next round if you failed and so on. 67% of taking damage twice, 61% three times and so forth.
In the old system a high enough Fort save made you essentially immune to poison, in the new system you could reach a point where you have no chance to resist the poison.
Something to think about.
Yes, the 3.5 poison is definitely nastier -- and even moreso with multiple doses.???????
You are struck 4 times in one round by our example poison.
Under the old rules you have a 100% chance of taking damage twice immediately and a 100% chance of taking damage once 1 minute later.
That is incorrect.
New rules: 75% chance of taking damage once in the first round, another 75% in the next round if you failed and so on. 67% of taking damage twice, 61% three times and so forth.
Where are you getting your numbers? Those don't line up with any of the examples we've used.
But again, when you do the math, it's a really long tail that doesn't actually increase the danger very much.In the old system a high enough Fort save made you essentially immune to poison, in the new system you could reach a point where you have no chance to resist the poison.
That is incorrect. At worst you have a 5% chance to end the whole thing. You always save on a 20.
Under most circumstances, the overlapping doses from 3.5 poison is much worse than the increase in potency under PF. I'm sure there are specific scenarios with an exception; care to provide one?
Let's crunch the math on Hex's example.
Old poison: 2 str primary and secondary, 14 or better to save.
New poison: 1 str over 6 rounds, 14 or better to save.
Take 4 doses. The new poison saves on a 20 only.
Old poison average:
Round 1: 5.6
Round 6: 5.6
Round 11: 11.2
Round 16: 11.2
New poison average:
Round 1: 1.0
Round 6: 5.0
Round 11: 8.2
Round 16: 10.2
I still say the old poison is worse.
BTW, full disclosure: I didn't want to write out all 16 columns, but on Rounds 7-10 the average damage is worse for new poison than old until the secondary damage kicks in.
Okay, I found a situation where the new poison is worse, LOTS and LOTS of doses of really weak poison.
For instance, if you save on a 2 or better normally against the above poison and take 10 doses of it, you end up with an average of 15.5 damage under the new rules and only 2 damage under the old rules.
I think the intent of the poison changes were to make them still effective but not as hosing. There are a number of creatures in the 3.5 MM that can be TPKs pretty trivialy. The new rules are much better, IMO, for GMs to use against players. From the players perspective, they are weaker to use, but its often more likely that the players will get poisoned than will be poisoning.
That being said, I like the new mechanics a whole lot more.
AvalonQX, it's not that you are nessecarily wrong... it's that your math isn't quite right, or clear. We can easily see from the example I provided that the older poison rules makes a single dose of medium spider venom nastier. However having two doses in someone doesn't mean you have 100% chance of them taking damage -- that's not how statistics work.
You have a 50% chance of the first poison working at first, and a 50% chance of the second poison working at first.
Your really percentage chances with the old poison:
6.25% = 0 damage (failing no saves)
25% = 2.5 damage (failing only one save)
37.5% = 5 damage (failing two saves)
25% = 7.5 damage (failing three saves)
6.25% = 10 damage (failing all four saves)
With the new poison:
40% chance = 0 damage (making the first save)
60% chance = 1.5 damage (failing the first save)
36% chance = 3 damage (failing the second save)
21.6% chance = 4.5 damage (failing 3 saves)
12.96% chance = 6 damage (failing 4 saves)
13.752% chance = 7.5 damage (failing 5 saves)
8.2512% chance = 9 damage (failing all 6 saves)
Please note that while it doesn't add up to 100% this is still correct, it's your percentage chance of getting that much damage.
The old poisons bell curve were as the new poisons chance the chances instead of allowing a bell curve... they are basically exponential.
It changes even more when you actually use more poison, OR when the poison does Con Damage.
I would also suggest that you take a look at the consecutive save poisons as they can be quite interesting on the percentages.
In truth you don't even need to know the save chances how often the damage is going to go through for a damage model.
AvalonQX, it's not that you are nessecarily wrong... it's that your math isn't quite right, or clear. We can easily see from the example I provided that the older poison rules makes a single dose of medium spider venom nastier. However having two doses in someone doesn't mean you have 100% chance of them taking damage -- that's not how statistics work.
Please quote exactly where it was that you think I said something that was wrong. I certainly never claimed that two doses of 50% poison means 100% chance of taking damage; I calculated average damage each time.
I have a problem with the list you presented, as it seems to imply that you'll end up taking exactly one poison hit 60% of the time. That's wrong. 60% of the time, you'll take at least one poison hit; you'll take exactly one poison hit only 24% of the time.
In the example you presented, the average damage for the new poison is 2.14.
In my example that is the percentage chance that you will take at least that much damage.
You are correct it was Hexcaliber that claimed the 100% damage thing.
In my example that is the percentage chance that you will take at least that much damage.
You are correct it was Hexcaliber that claimed the 100% damage thing.
Good, then. I think we're on the same page.
My last example I gave in response to Hexcalibur I think is a good one; it shows how four doses of poison will affect the character over time.It looks like the only time that PF poison is much worse is if the poison is really, really weak and you have a lot of doses.
Or really strong with a couple of doses. Say for example the following poisons:
Black Lotus: 2 consecutive saves to end it, 6 rounds 1d6 Con damage a round.
Burnt Uther Fumes: 2 consecutive saves, 6 rounds 1 Con drain, 1d3 Con damage
Wyvern Poison: 2 consecutive saves, 6 rounds 1d4 Con Damage.
Now with old poison you only need two saves regardless, with these new poisons two saves isn't enough, it has to be 2 in a row, and each round you fail it gets harder to resist, and if more poison is applied the duration increases and the save gets harder.
From what I've seen the higher end poisons are harder to deal with in pathfinder simply because you don't have that offset for the next part of the damage, and it continues to be a problem for the entire fight.
With a 10 round offset poisons typically didn't end a combat, and were handled before the secondary damage could come around again.
Well, I started crunching the numbers for the Black Lotus (3d6 primary/secondary vs 1d6 for 6 rounds with two consecutive to cure), but there were too many variables to keep track of.
I expect, though, that I'd still rather take multiple doses of the new poison, since multiple doses of the old poison have a decent likelihood of killing characters pretty much instantly, and the total possible damage is always the same or less.