Serpent belt, does it boost my poisons?

[Carla the Profane]

So I came across this gem in Ultimate Equipment: Serpent Belt. It gives you a "+4 bonus to all poisons". Does that mean the poisons I create as an alchemist get a +4 to their DC?

[Dave Justus]

Never noticed that before, but I'm pretty sure it is intended to be a +4 bonus to save against all poisons.

[dragonhunterq]

Considering that 'neutralise poison' is used in the creation I'm going to say that should be saves vs poison.

[Gisher]

Carla the Profane wrote:

So I came across this gem in Ultimate Equipment: Serpent Belt. It gives you a "+4 bonus to all poisons". Does that mean the poisons I create as an alchemist get a +4 to their DC?

That is what I had thought, but I find dragonhunterq's point about neutralize poison pretty convincing. I'm thinking that this probably needs errata.

[Crimeo]

Must be DC. What else would it be? Added directly to all ability damage? That would like... triple poison damage in most cases, and doesn't seem right. Also it would be undefined for non damaging poisons like drow poison. DC is the only number that consistently always applies.

[Carla the Profane]

Thing is, the flavour of the item fits 'your poisons get stronger' pretty well, but neutralize poison seems to be ment to work against poisons, then again, I don't know if this item was written before or after the spell Pernicious Poison was released, which would've been a better candidate if there's poison DC's involved. Can wel all please click the FAQ button? Even if it's just for an errata.

[Crimeo]

"Your poisons" does not make any sense for saves vs. other people using poisons on you. Your own DC is the only thing that grammatically fits with that.

The spell used in creation is not relevant. They are loosely chosen for flavor and have nothing to do with actual mechanics. Universal solvent uses acid arrow for example... You don't wanna go down that road.

edit: okay it says "all poisons" but at most, this could be both their poisons and your poisons' DCs (making you more vulnerable to poison and having more powerful poisons!). Which seems a bit silly, but I guess is possible. Saves still make no sense though. In no way are saves relevant to any poison itself getting a bonus.

[Dave Justus]

Crimeo wrote:

"Your poisons" does not make any sense for saves vs. other people using poisons on you. Your own DC is the only thing that grammatically fits with that.

The spell used in creation is not relevant. They are loosely chosen for flavor and have nothing to do with actual mechanics. Universal solvent uses acid arrow for example... You don't wanna go down that road.

edit: okay it says "all poisons" but at most, this could be both their poisons and your poisons' DCs (making you more vulnerable to poison and having more powerful poisons!). Which seems a bit silly, but I guess is possible. Saves still make no sense though. In no way are saves relevant to any poison itself getting a bonus.

Those of us on the save camp believe it is a typo. What is says DOESN'T make sense no matter what was intended.

[Casual Viking]

It's too undefined to tell by semantics alone. Seriously. Does it apply to poisons used, poisons created, poison as an ability (only), or what?

So, other factors have to be considered. Spells used, for one. The Core Rulebook has the Poison spell which would be obvious for poison-enhancing magic items. Another factor is cost; 9.000 is pretty decent for this belt, especially with a +4 untyped bonus to posion saves, but it would be completely crazyballs mask-of-stony-demeanor cheap if it gave +4 to the DC of all poisons used and poison effects created; bonuses to poison DC are hard to come by, whereas bonuses to save vs. poison are common and affordable.

[Cevah]

Given the construction requirements of SNA2 and BF1, and the text calling out it can be a venomous snake, it clearly can attack with poison.

So is that +4 to:

• the attack of the snake,
• the save DC of the snake's poison,
• the save DC of any poison you attack with,
• the save DC of any poison you secrete,
• the save DC of any poison you make,
• or the save vs. poison any time you need to make that save?

Since is states "the wearer gains", that rules out the first two entries.

/cevah

[Carla the Profane]

Shameless necro

[Casual Viking]

Carla the Profane wrote:

Shameless necro

The RAW answer is still "Whaaargarrrbl" and the "Rules-as-most-likely-intended" answer is still +4 to your own saves vs. poison.

[Joesi]

An item that buffs the DC of any poison anyone uses by 4 an unlimited number of times per day with no restrictions is unheard of in Pathfinder, and would be extremely expensive if it existed. Buffing poisons are limited to a small handful of methods, all of which tend to be quite inconvenient such as having time limits, use restraints, somewhat high level requirements, or something else inconvenient, and typically it's more than just one inconvenience as well.

Such an item would be very overpowered compared to anything else ever made related to poison (eve if you ignore the fact that it gives an untyped bonus). The fact that it has no use limit, doesn't say "your poisons" nor "poisons you use", doesn't require any actions, doesn't cost a lot, and uses terminology consistent with saving throws ("bonus", rather than something like "increase") all indicate that it would be buffing saving throws rather than poison DCs.

In fact, considering that it's an untyped bonus, and that it affects the poison itself rather than you, and that it has no duration nor any other limitation, it essentially means the existence of a single belt under any typical greedy person's control would result in a world where most of the manufactured poisons in the game would have DCs higher than anything any being could save against (unless they were immune), and all poisons would only have value for their effect rather than their DC.

[GM Bold Strider]

It is not unheard of.

There is an item that does just that: Calistrian Kiss.

It essentially gives a +4 to the DC of poisons in addition to being a +2 equivalent weapon that also extends the duration and impedes the chance to heal the poison off before it's duration ends. It has no limitations on how many poisons it can affect in one day.

The total item cost is 26,380 with 8,380 coming from the base weapon. This leaves 18,000 GP to account for the remaining abilities. If each ability is equal in price, then increasing the DCs of your poisons by 4 (or inducing a penalty of 4 on the afflicted) is worth 6,000 GP.

A Serpent Belt is worth 9,000 GP and 1) provides +4 to some aspect of poisons (poor wording); 2) +2 to Escape Artist check; 3) 1/day summon of a snake for one hour.

The Iron Cobra Gauntlet lets you summon a snake for one hour, three times per day at 8,000 GP, so the cost of summoning one snake for an hour, once per day is approximately 2,600 GP.

A Masterwork Tool provides a +2 competence bonus on a specific skill for 100 GP.

From this, +4 to poison DCs or a -4 penalty to poison saves, from a cost breakdown, is completely feasible as the aggregate total of the Serpent Belt is equivalent to what it should be worth based on the Calistrian Kiss.

[Joesi]

GM Bold Strider wrote:

It is not unheard of.

There is an item that does just that: Calistrian Kiss.

It has restrictions. It's limited to attacks with that weapon only, and poisons applied to that weapon only.

aside from that huge limitation, it also means it can't be used with poisons that are used as ingested or inhaled poisons.

Aside from being stuck with a very specific weapon (which is a huge limitation in itself, especially considering that it's a two handed exotic weapon), one has to reapply the poison every time they want to use it —something one would not have to do if they were using bolts, arrows or throwing poison vials. Applying poison takes a considerable amount of time, and typically makes it impossible to full attack with all poisoned attacks.

Rarely (I've never seen it) will a NPC ever use a skill or magic to treat a poison in combat, and increasing frequency is generally not that useful for poisons since a target would typically be dead, disabled, or recovered before that extra duration could take effect. While one could only speculate at it's actual intended GP value, it's effective value to a player would be extremely low. I probably wouldn't pay more than 1000 or 2000 GP for either one.

[Utii]

There must be an error Paizo says it has been errataed but it hasn't ...

[Gisher]

Ultimate Equipment, 2nd printing - Page 213 wrote:

Serpent Belt

This belt’s wearer gains a +4 bonus on saves against poisons and a +2 bonus on Escape Artist checks. In addition, once per day on command, the belt can be animated as a venomous snake or constrictor snake (Bestiary 255) that obeys the animator’s spoken commands for up to an hour. If the animated snake is slain or moves 100 feet away from the animator, the snake reverts into belt form.