Milking my Familiar (viper) for poison / venom


Advice

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Well for kicks I've decided to play a ghoran shaman focused on the balance of life and death in a twist. Life is too plentiful the world needs a new plauge or force of death to restore balance but not to that extreme obviously. So naturally when thinking about it I had to wonder how much poison/venom could my familiar (spirit animal) contribute to the cause? Of course it will be GM fiat but I would like to enter with a decent case.

Thoughts so far 1 dose every day/few days though a handle animal check because though it may not resist it would take some finesse. Because it is a rather weak substance I don't think the gm will disagree with my plan of blowgun poison darts. What I am asking for is opinions on mechanics, requirements and restrictions because I want it to be a sillier idea than powerful.

Sovereign Court

Let see in 1965, Haast milked venom from cobras, 69 000 times for three years to get one 1 pint of venom.

It's technically not very viable and take an incredible amount of patience to milk snakes. Vishkanya tho, have a racial trait or feat, forgot where they keep the poison in their bloodstream and can use it later.


Well that brings up the issue of potency I was dealing with hmmmm. One dose from the viper would not be one dose for something else- even a blowgun dart.

Obviously I wouldn't be looking for a pint but 69 000/ 1 pint is a good reality check.

on the other hand since I as a ghoran need no sleep could do this nightly on downtime (with viper asleep on me during the day) but this is just a potential lone step to solution.

Grand Lodge

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It's going to take a lot more milking the viper, to produce enough venom.

Good explanation for why he spends so much time in the bathroom.


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"I have to milk my snake"

.... if i used that enough I think my party would eventually send him to a whore house which to their dismay would probably fail considering ghoran kinda asexual reproduce lol.

I'm just trying to think of ways to add it for character flavour because honestly the venom has a dc of 7 :P with six attempts to save from only 1d2 con damage.


Haha... Reminds me of a party where we had a Good Domain divine character (inquisitor I think) and my Diviner, both of whom can touch people to give a bonus on the next roll. I would call out "I touch myself!" Before rolling an important skill check. If things were serious, I would need a hand from the Inquisitor as well. :p

It doesn't make much sense that the same amount of venom "is" a full dose in a snake's fangs and "isn't" a full dose on the end of a blowgun, or in a syringe. The fact that there isn't a whole lot of the venom is a big part of why the save DC is so low to begin with, presumably.


Lol, it does not take a pint of poison to poison a person. I drop will do.


As far as I know there's no rules in the game for harvesting poisons from monsters. That'd just have to be up to your GM.

I don't think you would be able to get enough venom every day to coat a great axe. =x

Also holy crap, a pint of venom is a crazy amount of venom. You could probably kill a country with that much.


Found this on a wildlife site about snakes...

How much venom is in a snake?
The amount of venom in a snake’s venom gland (measured as the amount extracted by milking) increases exponentially with the size of the snake, and can range from 1 – 850mg (or more). In a study comparing snake venoms, researchers milked the largest amount of venom from an Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake (Crotalus adamanteus)--more than from any other species they studied.

How many mg in a drop?
It depends on the liquid. If they are water drops they can vary in size. However a drop of water is reckoned to be about 0.05 ml in volume. I ml of water weighs 1 gm, so one drop of water weighs 0.05 gms There are 1000 milligrams in a gram, so (0.05 x 1000 =) 50 milligrams would be the approximate weight of one drop of water.

On an MD site about a species of Viper...
Adults inject 45% of the glands' content in the first bite. More than 75 mg of venom (desiccated) was injected by 11 out of 31 adults and 2 out of 17 juvenile snakes.

So 45% of it is 75 mg (Average), so 160mg total in the gland, on the site about Louisiana snake bites they say 15-20 days for a snakes glands to refill. While 50mg is 1 drop for water, venom being thicker may require 75mg for a drop, take out two doses leaving 10mg in the vipers glands, then give it 15 or so days to refill its glands, after which you could get another two doses.

Now all that said, this is a fantasy game, I have not seen anywhere in the rules that snakes can only poison someone twice in any given two week period, so you can milk your snake for its venom, but it would not rob it of its venomous bite IMO. If you saw the 2013 Riddick movie he milked a tiny/small venomous creature, that is fantasy, this is fantasy, he got quite a haul. Perhaps your gm would allow you base it on how well your handle animal skill roll is. (Sorry if I spoiled that for anyone, really its not a big spoiler, the spoiler would be to tell you...jk)

Perhaps you could ask your gm about allowing a healing / curative spell or effect to refill your snakes glands...when your critically hit with an axe and your blood spills all over everything a healing spell must replace that?


The rules do not allow for milking. You are intended to buy the poison.


It lacks rules but there is a trait that allows you to handle and apply poison taken from a venomous creature.

Harvester:

You were trained to harvest all parts of an animal with care and precision.

Benefits: You gain a +1 trait bonus on Profession (tanner) or Profession (trapper) checks, and you may make these checks as if you were trained in the skill even if you have no ranks. Additionally, you do not risk poisoning yourself whenever you handle or apply poison taken from a venomous creature.


While the trait doesn't really state it I would assume that it allows you to use venom (as poison) on your weapon. Most likely they assumed taking it from a dead creature but why not allow it from a life one?


The poison of a venomous snake is very similar to Black Adder Venom. BA Venom costs 120gp per dose on the market and you can craft it for 60 gp.

By milking a snake you basically get some of the material (= gp) you need for crafting a poison.

To be RAW as possible i would create a Profession (Snake Milker). With this profession you can 'earn' money per week (= raw materials for poisons). With Craft (Alchemy) you can create a poison using the raw materials (or the gp earned via Snake Milker).


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wraithstrike wrote:
The rules do not allow for milking. You are intended to buy the poison.

Milking a snake is in the rules. Why does everyone keep saying that it is not? It is called the Handle Animal skill.

Handle Animal says, in part,

Quote:


Handle an Animal: This task involves commanding an animal to perform a task or trick that it knows. If the animal is wounded or has taken any nonlethal damage or ability score damage, the DC increases by 2. If your check succeeds, the animal performs the task or trick on its next action.

Now, I can already imagine what those against this would say. "There is no trick that allows you to milk your snake." Now while I don't see any reason why you could not teach your snake a trick that is not on the list, I will not belabor the point because there is this

Quote:


Push an Animal: To push an animal means to get it to perform a task or trick that it doesn’t know but is physically capable of performing. This category also covers making an animal perform a forced march or forcing it to hustle for more than 1 hour between sleep cycles. If the animal is wounded or has taken any nonlethal damage or ability score damage, the DC increases by 2. If your check succeeds, the animal performs the task or trick on its next action.
.

So, even if you animal does not know the "milk trick" - any PC with Handle Animal of 5 of higher will eventually be able to milk their snake with enough tries. After all, it only takes a 25 to push, releasing venom is clearly something that a snake is capable of, and retries are not an issue with Handle Animal

So there you have it, the milk your snake issue is solved, let the chatter begin. I should have put this in the next Optibuilds' Skills PDF, but oh well.

Grand Lodge

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Driver_325yards wrote:
wraithstrike wrote:
The rules do not allow for milking. You are intended to buy the poison.

Milking a snake is in the rules. Why does everyone keep saying that it is not? It is called the Handle Animal skill.

Handle Animal says, in part,

Quote:


Handle an Animal: This task involves commanding an animal to perform a task or trick that it knows. If the animal is wounded or has taken any nonlethal damage or ability score damage, the DC increases by 2. If your check succeeds, the animal performs the task or trick on its next action.

Now, I can already imagine what those against this would say. "There is no trick that allows you to milk your snake." Now while I don't see any reason why you could not teach your snake a trick that is not on the list, I will not belabor the point because there is this

Quote:


Push an Animal: To push an animal means to get it to perform a task or trick that it doesn’t know but is physically capable of performing. This category also covers making an animal perform a forced march or forcing it to hustle for more than 1 hour between sleep cycles. If the animal is wounded or has taken any nonlethal damage or ability score damage, the DC increases by 2. If your check succeeds, the animal performs the task or trick on its next action.
.

So, even if you animal does not know the "milk trick" - any PC with Handle Animal of 5 of higher will eventually be able to milk their snake with enough tries. After all, it only takes a 25 to push, releasing venom is clearly something that a snake is capable of, and retries are not an issue with Handle Animal

So there you have it, the milk your snake issue is solved, let the chatter begin. I should have put this in the next Optibuilds' Skills PDF, but oh well.

You're making it too complicated. It's simply "attack the rim of this potion bottle" and then it milks itself.


Lol, it looks like the naysayers are had too different ways. I even like the Profession (Poison Milker) advice listed above.

Bottom line, milking for poison is so RAW it is not funny. The only question I have, now that everyone knows it is a part of the RAW, is whether there a nerf coming?

I hope not because otherwise poison is pointless in Pathfinder.


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I think you need to keep in mind that the poison will not remain viable indefinitely if you simply milk it from your pet snake. That's why they have a Craft (Poisonmaking) skill - it involves more than just squeezing a snake head or crushing up some apple seeds. You need stabilizing agents, air-tight containers, and so forth.

I would say that a character with ranks in Craft (Poisonmaking) would know how to milk a snake as a part of the process, and part of the gp cost would be provided by the viper, with the rest going towards other necessary physical and chemical materials.

Grand Lodge

Driver_325yards wrote:

Lol, it looks like the naysayers are had too different ways. I even like the Profession (Poison Milker) advice listed above.

Bottom line, milking for poison is so RAW it is not funny. The only question I have, now that everyone knows it is a part of the RAW, is whether there a nerf coming?

I hope not because otherwise poison is pointless in Pathfinder.

I was only joking. There aren't rules for making something out of nothing other than profession checks for profit over time (or magic..).

Verdant Wheel

The Shaman's familiar isn't a spirit animal ? I thought they didn't really have physical bodies.

Silver Crusade

Ok is this an offshoot of the succubus in a grapple thread.


Antimony wrote:

I think you need to keep in mind that the poison will not remain viable indefinitely if you simply milk it from your pet snake. That's why they have a Craft (Poisonmaking) skill - it involves more than just squeezing a snake head or crushing up some apple seeds. You need stabilizing agents, air-tight containers, and so forth.

I would say that a character with ranks in Craft (Poisonmaking) would know how to milk a snake as a part of the process, and part of the gp cost would be provided by the viper, with the rest going towards other necessary physical and chemical materials.

You don't need craft (poisonmaking) to turn poison into poison. Where is that in the rules? You use craft poison to turn non-poison into poison.

Where in the world in the rules does it say that you need stablizing agents for poison? You are just making stuff up now.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Your shaman is doing things the hard way. It's far easier to simply contaminate the water supply with corpses. Good way to end a siege in the attackers favor as well.


Driver_325yards wrote:
wraithstrike wrote:
The rules do not allow for milking. You are intended to buy the poison.

Milking a snake is in the rules. Why does everyone keep saying that it is not? It is called the Handle Animal skill.

Handle Animal says, in part,

Quote:


Handle an Animal: This task involves commanding an animal to perform a task or trick that it knows. If the animal is wounded or has taken any nonlethal damage or ability score damage, the DC increases by 2. If your check succeeds, the animal performs the task or trick on its next action.

Now, I can already imagine what those against this would say. "There is no trick that allows you to milk your snake." Now while I don't see any reason why you could not teach your snake a trick that is not on the list, I will not belabor the point because there is this

Quote:


Push an Animal: To push an animal means to get it to perform a task or trick that it doesn’t know but is physically capable of performing. This category also covers making an animal perform a forced march or forcing it to hustle for more than 1 hour between sleep cycles. If the animal is wounded or has taken any nonlethal damage or ability score damage, the DC increases by 2. If your check succeeds, the animal performs the task or trick on its next action.
.

So, even if you animal does not know the "milk trick" - any PC with Handle Animal of 5 of higher will eventually be able to milk their snake with enough tries. After all, it only takes a 25 to push, releasing venom is clearly something that a snake is capable of, and retries are not an issue with Handle Animal

So there you have it, the milk your snake issue is solved, let the chatter begin. I should have put this in the next Optibuilds' Skills PDF, but oh well.

Milking the snake is something you do to the animal, not something the animal does, so it is not in the rules, and saying you can make an animal do something by pushing does not mean "it is in the rules".


Driver_325yards wrote:
Antimony wrote:

I think you need to keep in mind that the poison will not remain viable indefinitely if you simply milk it from your pet snake. That's why they have a Craft (Poisonmaking) skill - it involves more than just squeezing a snake head or crushing up some apple seeds. You need stabilizing agents, air-tight containers, and so forth.

I would say that a character with ranks in Craft (Poisonmaking) would know how to milk a snake as a part of the process, and part of the gp cost would be provided by the viper, with the rest going towards other necessary physical and chemical materials.

You don't need craft (poisonmaking) to turn poison into poison. Where is that in the rules? You use craft poison to turn non-poison into poison.

Where in the world in the rules does it say that you need stablizing agents for poison? You are just making stuff up now.

Since poison is something that can be purchased you do have to be able to craft it. You show me the text that says something about "milking poison". I will wait.

However I do have this for you:

Quote:

Crafting Poison

You can make poison with the Craft (alchemy) skill. The DC to make a poison is equal to its Fortitude save DC. Rolling a natural 1 on a Craft skill check while making a poison exposes you to the poison. This does not consume the poison. If you have the poison use class feature, you do not risk accidentally poisoning yourself when applying poison.


Driver_325yards wrote:
Antimony wrote:

I think you need to keep in mind that the poison will not remain viable indefinitely if you simply milk it from your pet snake. That's why they have a Craft (Poisonmaking) skill - it involves more than just squeezing a snake head or crushing up some apple seeds. You need stabilizing agents, air-tight containers, and so forth.

I would say that a character with ranks in Craft (Poisonmaking) would know how to milk a snake as a part of the process, and part of the gp cost would be provided by the viper, with the rest going towards other necessary physical and chemical materials.

You don't need craft (poisonmaking) to turn poison into poison. Where is that in the rules? You use craft poison to turn non-poison into poison.

Where in the world in the rules does it say that you need stablizing agents for poison? You are just making stuff up now.

Real-world knowledge of poisons. Snake venom, once milked, does not just remain stable, vital, and toxic indefinitely.

The Craft (Poisonmaking) (or Craft (Alchemy) - thank you, Wraithstrike) roll is used to make a functional, stable poison. Snake venom degrades once it leaves its biological delivery system. Raw snake venom will shortly become a non-poisonous substance unless suitable precautions (and an associated Skill roll) are taken.

On the other hand, venom can remain poisonous for quite some time after an animal dies and is left intact. So the best bet is to kill the familiar and carry it around until you find someone you want to jab with its fangs.

But hey, it's a game, not a biology problem.


It might be easier to milk a Vishkanya. They don't need to be taught a trick to put poison in a bottle.


Umbral Reaver wrote:
It might be easier to milk a Vishkanya. They don't need to be taught a trick to put poison in a bottle.

Fortunately, as well, animals don't needs to be taught a trick to put poison into a bottle. They can be pushed to perform a task that they don't possess the trick for.


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Hm? Well I'll go from a story perspective first...

Milking a snake is not an enjoyable or comfortable process. You grab its head, force its mouth open, and jam its fangs into something hard, pressing down on its head uncomfortably. It will not enjoy this. But it is your familiar, it is smart, it can probably be convinced to bite a poison-catching basin on it's own. It might even LIKE biting things, nature tends to make survival-important acts (like sinking your fangs in and squirting poison) pleasurable.

Poison decays. Along with being a complex chemical structure prone to breaking down, it can dry up. Research real-life snake venom and see how long it lasts to figure out how effective it is.

Proper use of poison, even if you're immune, is helped by having the chemisty knowledge to distill it, thicken it, and/or figure out if it's gone bad.

and finally, going after your familiar's poison as "a plague upon the earth" doesn't really make a lot of sense. It isn't a disease, it doesn't spread, it might help individual attacks, but that fits more as, "my animal friend helps me, ha-ha!" than any sort of, "haha! This will help balance the forces of life and death by...maybe helping kill you...random dude I was killing anyway." *suddenly self-aware expression*

RAWs-wise? Every attempt to get your snake to dump a dose of poison has a chance of failure, it can make infinite attempts in a day (but asking the DM to let you will result in a smack upside the head) and there is nothing stating it IS a viable option, thus nothing obligating the DM to let you succeed.


What attack roll does the snake make to bite the opening of the bottle? Can it miss? Does it hit whatever is holding the bottle if it does?

Once it's bitten the bottle opening, does it do its damage to the air? The bottle? Does the bottle get to make a Fort save to not be poisoned? The air?

I can probably find the AC of the bottle opening but I'm reasonably certain that none of the rest of these questions are answerable with actual rules, because actual rules for milking snakes don't exist.

Also, most snakes are not capable of "spitting" venom. Venom delivery methods are usually a groove down the fang (like an old ink pen) or hollow fangs.


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Maybe we need to combine the threads.

"How to grapple and milk your succubus familiar."

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