Drow Poison, am I reading this correctly?


Rules Questions


Creating a scenario, I thought I'd use four Drow as a template for the monsters. They look simple enough, are CR1/3 - perfect for four level 1 PCs - until I notice the poison quality:

Drow Poison—injury; save Fort DC 13; frequency 1/minute for 2 minutes; initial effect unconsciousness for 1 minute; secondary effect unconsciousness for 2d4 hours; cure 1 save.

I've not used poisons before, but after checking, this seems quite brutal:

The Drow attacks, and makes a successful hit with his poisoned sword.
The PC has to save or immediately fall unconscious.
The PC fails and falls unconscious for 1 minute + 2d4 hours.
The PC gets to roll again once a minute (10 rounds) to try and save.

I must be misunderstanding this.

Silver Crusade

Nope, fail the first save and you're out for a minute, fail the second one (1 minute = 10 rounds), and you're out for 2d4 hours, fail a third time and you're out for an additional 2d4 hours.


Blimey, so they really do only get a second chance at saving after 10 round? That's a pretty hardcore poison!

Sovereign Court

The DC is quite low though.


I guess so; my main concern would be four Drow attacking, as the poison stacking would make it somewhat more of a problem.

I guess there's only one way to find out!


Which is why whenever possible, drow spam the poison using hand crossbows from multiple opponents.


Great, thanks guys!


Drow Poison is the best poison in the game.

Which is frankly quite stupid and greatly annoys me.

Silver Crusade

Also remember that the poison is removed from the blade the first time it hits someone, regardless of whether or not they save.


Grenage wrote:
I guess so; my main concern would be four Drow attacking, as the poison stacking would make it somewhat more of a problem.

Are you running poison right? Poison only 'stacks' if you fail the saving throw. Which in this case means that you're out of the combat anyway, so you're unlikely to get attacked a second time unless it's to finish you off.


That I didn't realise; certainly makes a big difference if it's a melee weapon.
I assume NPC monsters could have a vast quantity of poisoned projectiles prepared.


Matthew Downie wrote:
Grenage wrote:
I guess so; my main concern would be four Drow attacking, as the poison stacking would make it somewhat more of a problem.
Are you running poison right? Poison only 'stacks' if you fail the saving throw. Which in this case means that you're out of the combat anyway, so you're unlikely to get attacked a second time unless it's to finish you off.

Ah yes, of course. Not sure how I missed that.

Silver Crusade

Grenage wrote:

That I didn't realise; certainly makes a big difference if it's a melee weapon.

I assume NPC monsters could have a vast quantity of poisoned projectiles prepared.

Remember to count the cost of each dose of poison in the treasure, the drow don't get it for free. And since each one costs 75 gp, that's eating heavily into the WBL of the NPCs.


Ah, everything is starting to look a lot less over-powered; the devil is in the details. So a monster can't turn up with 10 poisoned arrows at level 1.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Isn't there a thing about poison DC's stacking for multiple doses? Is that what Grenage might have meant?


There is, but I guess with Drow poison - if you fail once, stacks are almost irrelevant, as you're out for the count.


Stone Dog wrote:
Isn't there a thing about poison DC's stacking for multiple doses? Is that what Grenage might have meant?

+2DC per stacking dose as far as I know.


Goblin_Priest wrote:
Stone Dog wrote:
Isn't there a thing about poison DC's stacking for multiple doses? Is that what Grenage might have meant?
+2DC per stacking dose as far as I know.

But the DC stacking only starts when you fail saves, which makes stacking irrelevant when the poison is Drow Poison (which OHKOs).


Snowblind wrote:
Goblin_Priest wrote:
Stone Dog wrote:
Isn't there a thing about poison DC's stacking for multiple doses? Is that what Grenage might have meant?
+2DC per stacking dose as far as I know.
But the DC stacking only starts when you fail saves, which makes stacking irrelevant when the poison is Drow Poison (which OHKOs).

Oh, didn't know that. Looked it up, seems you are right. Much more logical than the way I had heard it to be.


Snowblind wrote:
Goblin_Priest wrote:
Stone Dog wrote:
Isn't there a thing about poison DC's stacking for multiple doses? Is that what Grenage might have meant?
+2DC per stacking dose as far as I know.
But the DC stacking only starts when you fail saves, which makes stacking irrelevant when the poison is Drow Poison (which OHKOs).

According to PCR

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.

and

Medium spider venom injury 14 — 1/rd. for 4 rds. 1d2 Str 1 save

We see an example that if a character is hit by multiple attacks that deliver poison (even injury) do add +2 per additional dose to the save DC without the person needing to have failed a save vs that poison previously.

Unless there is a FAQ/errata contradicting the online PCR.


This is from the PFSRD:

Quote:

Multiple Doses of Poison

Unlike other afflictions, multiple doses of the same poison “stack,” meaning that successive doses combine to increase the poison's DC and duration.

Making your initial saving throw against a poison means stacking does not occur—the poison did not affect you and any later doses are treated independently. Likewise, if a poison has been cured or run its course (by you either making the saves or outlasting the poison's duration), stacking does not occur. However, if there is still poison active in you when you are attacked with that type of poison again, and you fail your initial save against the new dose, the doses stack. This has two effects, which last until the poisons run their course.

Increased Duration: Increase the duration of the poison by 1/2 the amount listed in its frequency entry.

Increased DC: Increase the poison's DC by +2.

These increases are cumulative (a third dose adds another 1/2 of the frequency to the duration and +2 to the DC, and so on). When affected by multiple doses of the same poison, you only make one saving throw at this higher DC when required by the frequency, rather than one saving throw against each dose of the poison.

Multiple doses do not alter the Cure condition of the Poison, and meeting that Cure condition ends all doses of the poison.

Applied contact poisons and injury poisons cannot inflict more than one dose of poison per weapon at a time (because the poison on the weapon only lasts for one successful attack before it wears off). Inhaled and ingested poisons can inflict multiple doses at once.

Doses from different poisons (such as an assassin with greenblood oil on his dagger and Medium spider venom on his short sword) do not stack—the effects of each are tracked separately.

Example: A fighter is facing three Medium spiders (which inject Medium spider venom on a successful bite). Medium spider venom normally has a frequency of 4 rounds and a DC of 14. On the first round, all three spiders bite him and he fails all three saves. The second and third doses each increase the total duration by 2 rounds (half of the 4 round frequency) and the save DC by +2, for a total duration of 8 rounds (4 + 2 + 2) and DC 18 (14 + 2 + 2). Fortunately, Medium spider venom is cured after just one successful save, even though the fighter is battling three doses at once.

Not sure if it was erratad since the version you quote?


I remember there was a Poison FAQ blog post that cleared things up considerably. Can't find it at the moment...

Edit: I drank what? An FAQ on Poison found it!


Franz Lunzer wrote:

I remember there was a Poison FAQ blog post that cleared things up considerably. Can't find it at the moment...

Edit: I drank what? An FAQ on Poison found it!

Ah, thanks. Our GM just had multiple poison hits (of the same type) add to the DC and require one save. Which made a lot of sense to all of us with the clause

"Multiple doses do not alter the cure conditions of the poison, and meeting these conditions ends the affliction for all the doses. "

Making multiple dose very hard to resist, but not hitting any harder.

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