Short question with poisons


Rules Questions


For example, spider drain poison

Poison (Ex)
Bite—injury; save Fort DC 10; frequency 1/round for 4 rounds; effect 1d2 Strength damage; cure 1 save.

This means that if the spider bites one of the PC, he needs to make a fort DC save if he fails, he will suffer 1d2 strength damage.

a) If the PC is not bitten next turn, he needs to roll again DC10, to avoid further 1d2 strength loss? or he needs to roll and if he saves, he has the 1d2 strength back?

b) If the PC is bitten again next round

b1) Does he the right to roll fortitude 10 before, to see if he can get rid of the poison of last round?

b2) Does he the right to roll fortitude 10 for this new poison (to avoid getting inside his body)?

b3) He roll just one once at DC 12 (stacked poison)?

b4) He just roll DC10 for the new bite
- If he succeeds, he avoids getting the new dose of poison inside, but still has the poison of the last round inside, and therefore he needs to roll DC 10 again.
- If he fails, he needs to roll DC 12 for both doses, succeeding means that both doses are eliminated from his body.

C) Imagine that he fails all fortitude checks, after the duration of the venom (4 rounds + 2 rounds/extra dose), he gets his strength back right?

D) Englishwise, did I use correctly the word "poison" or should I have used the word "venom"?


Starfinder Charter Superscriber

I can answer a couple of these quickly:

1) The words "poison" and "venom" are interchangeable in this context ("venom" is a kind of "poison" that comes from snakes, spiders, etc.)

2) Once a PC has failed the first save, they get a save each round to see if the effects worsen (taking further Strength loss). Making a save will never give them the Strength back (that would require rest or spells), but in the example you provided, 1 successful save is the "cure" which means further effects stop (no further saves are needed).


The answer to question b is b4. Yes, he gets a save for the new bite, but still has the old poison in him. If he saves he just has the old poison. If he fails he now has both doses inside of him.

for question C) he only gets his strength back when he rests. When a character rests they can earn back 1 point of strength damage a day. So if he started at 18 strength, and the poison caused him to take 5 strength damage, he would need to rest for 5 days.

There are ways to fix this, though, like Lesser Restoration cast by a cleric. Or someone with the Heal skill can make a DC 15 Heal check to increase the healing rate to 2 points of strength a day.

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