Milking my Familiar (viper) for poison / venom


Advice

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I think you could handle this topic like the following:

1) You have a hen that lays eggs. The eggs do not come from nothing they come from the hen. And they have a certain value. Now you can add other ingredients and use profession cook or craft cooking to turn the egg into something more valuable: A meal.

2) You have a venomous animal that gives off venom. The venom does not come from nothing it comes from the venomous creature. It has a certain value. Now you can add other ingredients and use craft poison or craft alchemy to turn the venom into something more valuable: A poison.

How much the egg or the venom is worth is up to the GM as I can't find either on one of the tables. I guess an egg will not be worth more than a chicken is and a live chicken costs 2cp. How much a dose of venom is worth I have no idea. But a viper costs 5gp and a house centipede costs 1cp.
Sadly there is no viper poison and the centipede poison is from the small one, not the tiny one which is purchasable and usable as a familiar.

On the other hand a dose of wolfsbane (medicinal herb) costs 5sp while a dose of wolfsbane poison costs 500gp.

Edit: The same it is possible to just boil and eat an egg without much work or fancy I would allow to just apply a venom to a weapon if it is used soon.


Closest guideline I know: Talismanic Components.

Edit:

Quote:
Craft Poison exist for turning nonpoison into poison, not for turning poison into poison.
PRD wrote:

Crafting Poison

You can make poison with the Craft (alchemy) skill.

Craft poison doesn't exit, it's alchemy. Anyway, it's used to transform raw components, be it raw drops of poison or herbs, into something else that can last and are in the bounds of the rules.


I'll post the same thing I posted last night. Universal Monster Rules for Poison.

Poison (Ex or Su) wrote:
Poison (Ex or Su) A creature with this ability can poison those it attacks. The effects of the poison, including its save, frequency, and cure, are included in the creature's description. The saving throw to resist a poison is usually a Fort save (DC 10 + 1/2 poisoning creature's racial HD + creature's Con modifier; the exact DC is given in the creature's descriptive text). Poisons can be removed through neutralize poison and similar effects.

Bolding for emphasis. So without some exception to this rule, the snake must make an attack to use its poison. Handle Animal doesn't help you because it doesn't bypass the rule that the snake has to attack something.


Bob Bob Bob wrote:
I'll post the same thing I posted last night. Universal Monster Rules for Poison.
Poison (Ex or Su) wrote:
Poison (Ex or Su) A creature with this ability can poison those it attacks. The effects of the poison, including its save, frequency, and cure, are included in the creature's description. The saving throw to resist a poison is usually a Fort save (DC 10 + 1/2 poisoning creature's racial HD + creature's Con modifier; the exact DC is given in the creature's descriptive text). Poisons can be removed through neutralize poison and similar effects.
Bolding for emphasis. So without some exception to this rule, the snake must make an attack to use its poison. Handle Animal doesn't help you because it doesn't bypass the rule that the snake has to attack something.

That alone would not be a problem because it could attack the container you use for milking. Like a dried animal bladder.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Venom is not the same thing as poison.


Lavawight wrote:
Venom is not the same thing as poison.

After recently being told about the difference I try to use it. Even if I misunderstood it somewhat. Here is the wiki entry, something easy to understand even for non-native speakers like me.

wiki about poison, toxin and venom:
The term "poison" is often used colloquially to describe any harmful substance, particularly corrosive substances, carcinogens, mutagens, teratogens and harmful pollutants, and to exaggerate the dangers of chemicals. Paracelsus (1493-1541), the father of toxicology, once wrote: "Everything is poison, there is poison in everything. Only the dose makes a thing not a poison"[2] (see median lethal dose). The law defines "poison" more strictly. Substances that are not legally required to carry the label "poison" can also cause a medical condition of poisoning.

Some poisons are also toxins, usually referring to naturally produced substances, such as the bacterial proteins that cause tetanus and botulism. A distinction between the two terms is not always observed, even among scientists. The derivative forms "toxic" and "poisonous" are synonymous.

Animal poisons that are delivered subcutaneously (e.g. by sting or bite) are also called venom. In normal usage, a poisonous organism is one that is harmful to consume, but a venomous organism uses poison (venom) to kill its prey or defend itself while still alive. A single organism can be both poisonous and venomous.


If you get the snake to bite a flask, what will happen is that the poison fails as the flask does not have a constitution score and is thus immune to poison.

Paizo Glitterati Robot

Removed some back and forth posts. Guys, there is no reason to get this heated in an advice thread. Understand that we're all people here, and some people just won't agree, and that's fine. Nobody has to accept the advice they receive on our messageboards. If you don't have further advice to offer, it's probably better to just move on rather than derailing the conversation with personal insults. Also, if you see a problematic post, flag it and move on, don't respond to it.


Chris Lambertz wrote:
Removed some back and forth posts. Guys, there is no reason to get this heated in an advice thread. Understand that we're all people here, and some people just won't agree, and that's fine. Nobody has to accept the advice they receive on our messageboards. If you don't have further advice to offer, it's probably better to just move on rather than derailing the conversation with personal insults. Also, if you see a problematic post, flag it and move on, don't respond to it.

Thanks a lot.


Okay, well I will finish by giving a simple step by step process I beleive the OP should use and leave it at that.

If you are looking to get poison from your snake you will need a mechanism in the Pathfinder rules to do this. The mechanism needs to have a process covered in the rules and DCs for each step of the process. I would advice that you do as follows:

1) Take handle animal as a skill and put enough ranks in it where your score will be a +5 or better. This will allow you to automatically succeed on any handle animal check for your snake to attack (DC 5) as long as you train him to attack. If you do not train him to attack it will you will need to push him to attack (DC 25). This will not be a problem for you because Handle Animal allows for retries. So you can try try again until you succeed.

2) I would advise that you take Profession (Poison Milking). The rules place no limit on the type of Professions you can take. Further, you need to be proficiency with the tools used for poison milking (DC 5). So, once again make sure your bonus is +5.

3) Handle the snake by placing its head next to the container and then use handle animal to allow it to attack the container (DC5 or DC25 depending on if the snake is trained or not). See if your GM agrees with the following when he looks at the snake entry and other areas of the rules I will point out: 1) everytime a snake bites he injects poison; 2) biting the top of the container is a sunder attempt the should make the snakes bite penetrate the top of the container automatically given that the bite does more damage than the hardness of the top of the container; 3) once the poison is in the container it does not degrade in Pathfinder given that there are no rules on poison of anykind degrading in Pathfinder; 4) You can get unlimited doses of poison from your snake because there are no rules in Pathfinder that limit the doses of poison that come from a snake.

Now, I beleive that with most GMs, even though the rules don't state it, will have a problem with unlimited doses of poison and, to a lesser extent, the unlimited shelf life of poison regardless of the RAW. Accordingly, I would negotiate something reasonable with them. Maybe only two or three doses a day and agree to keep no more than ten doses on hand at one time. I don't think this is overpowered. Also, GMs will be concerned with you possibly selling your poison for profit which could distort your Wealth by Level. Agree to not sell it for simplicity.

4) Finally, I would take some ranks in craft (alchemy) because you will want access to poisons other than those that come from your snake.

By the way, thanks for the intervention. I think we can all give our advice on the rules and go our merry ways.

Refer your GM to this link Using Handle Animal to Milk a Snake


I thought our dudebro snakes and milking drow was fun...


My recommendation:
Ask your GM if having the viper means that you always have the capability of buying the RAW ingredients in any town that has any kind of shop. Since the viper is supplying the poison components, you really just need the generic other things, like the bottle to keep it in. I would not expect to get any discount on the cost of the poison, but this would allow you to still craft(alchemy) the poison even in towns that are 100% goody-two-shoes with no one who sells poisons otherwise.

As it is, its all houserules, and there aren't rules banning buying poison from just about any kind of town either, so my suggestion only applies in settings where poisons are hard to come by.

Also, if you're forcing (pushing) your familiar to milk daily, I'd expect he might get fedup with you or have other RP consequences to it. Again, all up to the GM. Basically, you should just ask your GM, "Hey, is this something I can do?" and go with what he says.


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I'm amazed when I read threads like this. And, a little saddened, too.

Grand Lodge

Actually, Driver's post gives me an idea of how I'd do it. Take ranks in Profession (Poison Milking) and use the money generated by that exclusively for Craft (Alchemy) checks made to create usable poison.


Ah, last post quoted one that got modded so I'll have to repost this.
Since we're apparently finally in agreement that the snake has to make an attack I'll skip that part.

Once the snake makes an attack the attack has to do damage for the poison to take effect. It's an injury poison, you have to injure the thing you're affecting. I bring this up because all the wizard familiars with poison I looked at cannot actually do damage (1d2-2, 1d3-4, 1d2-4) and will instead do 1 point of nonlethal... which objects are immune to.

Provided you can find a way to deal damage the poison only takes effect on the thing that is bitten, which then makes a Fort save to resist. Unattended objects get no save, but as someone pointed out, they don't have a Con score and so are not affected.

Even if the we ignore the last part, poison absolutely does have a duration if it's not a poison you've bought or made. The viper, for instance, has poison that only lasts 6 rounds. "frequency 1/round for 6 rounds"

So if you can get a viper's damage up or find something with negative hardness, find some kind of container that has a Con score (so it can be poisoned) and has some way to reuse that poison, then you can use the viper poison for six rounds, before it has run its course and is no longer in the container.

As many people have pointed out the only way to make poison (without an explicit exception) is with Craft (alchemy). A suggestion from 3.5 that someone pointed out earlier in the thread is that if you have the creature you're making poison from you should reduce the cost of the materials required to craft the poison.


Bob Bob Bob wrote:

The viper, for instance, has poison that only lasts 6 rounds. "frequency 1/round for 6 rounds"

I have already commented on everything else so no need to repeat. I do want to point out -for the OP's understanding - that all poisons (out of an animal or off the shelf) have a frequency. Frequency has nothing to do with the shelf life of a poison. It has to do with how often you need to make a save against the poison once it is injected, comes into contact with, or is inhaled by a target that is not immune to the poison.


I have no idea why my post was deleted. But:
Driver, there is no rules-based equivalency between the Poison [Ex] universal monster ability, and the "Poison" equipment category.

Milking a snake for Poison [Ex] is like milking a doppelganger for Mimicry [Ex]. You cannot extract extraordinary abilities from creatures.

You could say "well in the real world snake poison is a substance and can be milked!" but then I'd say "In the real world you can't just get snake to bite a flask and have a bunch of usable lasting poison" and then you could say "well this isn't the real world" and then I'd say "exactly". So we can skip that whole line of reasoning.

Bottom line is, until you can post the rules for extracting an ability and bottling it, you don't have a case for it being RAW. I think there's some class features that can steal SLAs, but extraordinary I have no clue.


Bob Bob Bob wrote:


I bring this up because all the wizard familiars with poison I looked at cannot actually do damage (1d2-2, 1d3-4, 1d2-4) and will instead do 1 point of nonlethal... which objects are immune to.

Is that really the case? I thought damage minimum was 1 without it being turned to non-lethal.

Edit: reread it and you are right.


Gaberlunzie wrote:

I have no idea why my post was deleted. But:

Driver, there is no rules-based equivalency between the Poison [Ex] universal monster ability, and the "Poison" equipment category.

Milking a snake for Poison [Ex] is like milking a doppelganger for Mimicry [Ex]. You cannot extract extraordinary abilities from creatures.

You could say "well in the real world snake poison is a substance and can be milked!" but then I'd say "In the real world you can't just get snake to bite a flask and have a bunch of usable lasting poison" and then you could say "well this isn't the real world" and then I'd say "exactly". So we can skip that whole line of reasoning.

Bottom line is, until you can post the rules for extracting an ability and bottling it, you don't have a case for it being RAW. I think there's some class features that can steal SLAs, but extraordinary I have no clue.

Actually, there is a rule base equivalency. In the real world and in Pathfinder, a snake's poison is something that can be milked and is something that is a poison. Poison (Ex) is the ability to excrete poison the substance. Poison, the substance is poison the equipment.

Lantern Lodge

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There is a method to indirectly milk anything. It involves the "Chalice of Poison Weeping".

1. Poison a target guinea pig (either have yourself be poisoned or commit an act of evil and use something else).
2. Use the chalice of poison weeping to cure the target guinea pig while collecting the poison.

Usuable 1/day.

There's some really nasty poisons available if you get the creature. Consider the jellyfish, for example.

I'm thinking of making a poison guide to help find ways to take advantage of poison outside of traditional methods.


Now that's a good RAW way to harvest poison.


It is actually a kinda bad way to harvest poison. It makes the poison considerably weaker.


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Fantastic Frodo, that is the only RAW method to get a poison from a creature with a poison attack.

Could even have the big tough fighter or other strong fort save partymember be the guinea pig. Find a creature with 2/save cure poisons, have fighter get bit and (hopefully) make the first save. Your action you chalice of poison weeping him. And badabing, instant poison.

A source of a 2/save poison are quasits (via improved familiar) though the DC would be abysmal 13 reduced to 9 via the chalice. On the other hand, if you are coating everyones weapons in the stuff, theres a good chance you can get the DC boosted by 6-8 via multiple applications, making it possibly worthwhile. Especially if you have an archer as each arrow can deliver a new dose (unlike melee weapons where its one and done).

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