Opium ability damage


Rules Questions


If one were to dip there two daggers in opium and deal damage to the enemy, would the ability damage stack? 1D4 Con and 1D4 wisdom, I'm assuming the fatigued condition would remain fatigued and not go to exhausted?


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Nope. Drugs are not poisons. You cannot use them offensively.

If your GM wants to allow you to use it offensively then they need to increase the cost to bring it in line with other injury poisons.


I did not know that. Thanks.


dragonhunterq wrote:

Nope. Drugs are not poisons. You cannot use them offensively.

If your GM wants to allow you to use it offensively then they need to increase the cost to bring it in line with other injury poisons.

you most certainly can use them offensively, however you need specific Drugs. Injury Drugs to be precise. there used to be just 2 but recently in one of the new books, several new ones have been added.

If you apply an injury drug to a weapon and attack and hit, they have to make a saving through vs becoming addicted only. They will 100% suffer the stat damage. It will not stack, so you can only apply it 1 time per drug and its incredibly imbalanced when doing so. however, Drugs are not cheap, and are not easy to come by so use it sparingly when you can afford it or come across it. If you REALLY want to, it is possible to apply 2 different drugs to 2 different weapons and 2 different Poisons to 2 different weapons. I had a particular alchemist that applied 1 drug and 2 poisons per weapon in his attacks, so that was 4 different poisons and 2 drugs. 6 saves in the first round of combat. fun s#$! when you make it purely to debilitate the opponent rather than damage seeking.


Drugs:
OPIUM Type inhaled, ingested, or injury; Addiction major, Fortitude DC 20 Price 25 gp Effects 1 hour; +1d8 temporary hit points, +2 alchemical bonus on Fortitude saves, fatigue Damage 1d4 Con and 1d4 Wis damage

ZERK Type injury; Addiction minor, Fortitude DC 18 Price 50 gp Effects 1 hour; +1 alchemical bonus to initiative. If addicted, the user also gains a +1d4 alchemical bonus to Strength for as long as he is addicted Damage 1d2 Con damage

Those were the 2 Drugs I used.


In general, however, anything called 'damage' ... well, stack isn't the right word. Accumulates, I guess. Whether HP damage or ability damage.


The "no saving throw" thing is actually pretty nasty in some limited situations. I'm thinking about a "1000 needle overdose" trap now.


Poisons and Drugs are different. One is designed to be used offensively and the other is designed for personal use. You can see this by the language used in those respective sections. Poisons have "targets" while Drugs have "users."

The mechanics of the system don't work well if you treat one as the other (Drugs are overpowered compared to poisons if both are 'the same').

I believe that unless a victim is helpless or in some way manipulated into willingly (even if unknowingly) using a drug they are not 'users' and not subject to the effects of a drug.

Also note that unlike Poisons, Drugs, even injury drugs, do not have any mechanics for applying them to a weapon.


By that logic, injury is meaningless as a mechanical property of a drug, instead being a storytelling aid. Maybe that was the intent--e.g., "injury" simply means it's injected or otherwise introduced directly into the bloodstream. But it doesn't really follow--there's nothing preventing someone from using poisoner's gloves to force-inject opium, so I'm gonna feel pretty lame forbidding a player from applying it to their weapon as an injury poison.


http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/c/create-drug/

If I create Shiver this way and apply it to my Rogues blade (two doses), if the first attack caused fear immunity but the second dose caused sleep, would I just got with the Sleep effect or does the first act stick no matter what?

Shiver
Effects variable; 50% chance to sleep for 1d4 hours or gain immunity to fear for 1d4 minutes Damage 1d2 Con damage

Lastly, what does this mean "The DC to resist a drug created by this spell is based on the conjurer’s caster level, not the DC listed in the common versions of the drug."


The drug rules are some of my least favourite mechanics in Pathfinder.

It shouldn't be so hard to tell stories about flawed heroes with dependency issues. Alcohol is the only substance one can abuse without suffering terribly deleterious effects.

We have house ruled drugs to make them more usable as a narrative mechanism.


It's not our problem assassin guilds et al. use overpriced poisons instead of drugs.

I mean, when the whole stick is basically "no, I don't use the widely aviable, save, reliable, and easy-to-learn magic, but rather spend a ton of time and money top be one tenth as good", limited mental capacity is kinda to be expected.


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Drugs cost so much money you need to spend several months' professional wages to get a single dose! Everyone gets addicted! They are deadlier than the deadliest poisons! Just say no, kids!


blahpers wrote:
By that logic, injury is meaningless as a mechanical property of a drug, instead being a storytelling aid. Maybe that was the intent--e.g., "injury" simply means it's injected or otherwise introduced directly into the bloodstream. But it doesn't really follow--there's nothing preventing someone from using poisoner's gloves to force-inject opium, so I'm gonna feel pretty lame forbidding a player from applying it to their weapon as an injury poison.

Poisoners gloves are a special case. Normally you can't just force feed a potion to an enemy either, but poisoners gloves let you do that.

That said, I would still probably not allow you to use poisoners gloves with drugs in a game I ran, since I still think drugs are not properly calibrated to be used offensively but that would be a houserule, while I believe not being able to simply 'drug' a blade is the most valid interpretation of the rules.


Matthew Downie wrote:
Drugs cost so much money you need to spend several months' professional wages to get a single dose! Everyone gets addicted! They are deadlier than the deadliest poisons! Just say no, kids!

"Say no to poisons. Winners don't use poisons, they use drugs! A public service announcement brought to you by Paizo Inc."

So, if drugs aren't intended to be injury poisons, does using them that way count as... drug abuse?


Matthew Downie wrote:
Drugs cost so much money you need to spend several months' professional wages to get a single dose! Everyone gets addicted! They are deadlier than the deadliest poisons! Just say no, kids!

Maybe the plebes just take like 1/100th of a dose and that's how they can both afford them and avoid exploding in a shower of attribute-damaged giblets whenever they partake.


If I were the one running it, due to the nature of the "no saves" thing, I'd require that drugs used offensively be used the same way a Garrote is - from stealth, effectively. Like hitting someone with chloroform, it's not effective if they struggle before you get the rag over their faces. :P But that's just because drugs as a poison variant are broken. By raw, yes, much like dealing HP damage, if you struck with both daggers, you'd deal 2d4 con and 2d4 wis. So, while your wording is wrong, yes, that's how it works.


Essentially how things went down was this; I had 50 doses of Opium and 25 doses of Zerk that i got at character creation. I was NEVER able to find more through the whole campaign, and i didn't even bother to go looking for them. Injury Drugs CAN be used on weapons as nothing (wording or otherwise) has said that they can't. Injury, Inhaled, Contact, etc etc is simply the means of delivery to the creature.

A Drugs DC save is simply to not be addicted; says so right under Drugs. There are good things for taking drugs and bad things for taking drugs. I used them on enemies strictly for the debilitating stat damage (it was loads of fun but i was not the dps monkey and i made myself that way on purpose, otherwise whats the point)

My character was an Eldritch Poisoner Alchemist (That archetype is BUSTED)
I had 2 Toxic Dispelling Arachnid's Fangs (They can hold 8 doses of a poison IN the blade, and deliver 1 dose upon successful attack. Toxic allowed a +2 DC to poisons delivered via attack as well as a 25% chance to not expend that dose.)

Main hand had Arcanotoxin (DC 28, 1d6 Dex, Con or Int. 1/Rnd, 4 Rounds, + Confusion + Paralytic Toxin. 3 Consecutive saves.) on the blade, and 8 Doses of Violet Venom IN the blade. It also had 1 dose of Opium on the blade. Drugs are not poisons so do not follow the rules of multiple poisons being put on a blade.

Off hand had 8 Doses of Large Scorpion Venom IN the blade, and Striped Toadstool ON the blade as well as Zerk on the blade.

In 1 turn I could apply (and this annoyed the s+@! out of the DM because of the amount of fort saves i had him roll) Opium, Arcanotoxin, Violet Venom, Zerk, Large Scorpion Venom and Striped Toadstool. That person was nearly guaranteed f~+~ed. But it came at a cost, thats a LOT of money being used on 1 person. If i was in combat with more than 1, i could not easily put more drugs on the weapons, so most of the time they were 1 shot until combat was over. It was fun, it was effective and it infuriated.....until i came across things poison immune, then i was f#@$ed.

Grand Lodge

The biggest problem here is that there are no rules for using drugs offensively. We have specific rules on how to use poisons offensively and what it takes to apply them to our weapons. Unless you find something like that for drugs, then by RAW you can't use them offensively by coating your weapon with them.


There is nothing that say you can't though either, so if your DM is fine with it (like mine was) you can use them offensively


On the other hand though, looking back on it all, Drugs not having a resist to the ability damage is REALLY strong, as the amount of damage is higher than most poisons. I probably would not be using them anymore.
I would recommend, for the sake of game balance, not using them on weapons.

Scarab Sages

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That's not how it works. There's nothing that says power attack can't also be used to add 200 damage to every attack. It doesn't do that because pathfinder isn't a game where all the options have to be excluded. In order to do something you need a rule that says you can do it.

Drugs can't be used as poisons because there are no rules that say you can use them in that manner. If you want to try to apply, "nothing says they can't either" then I could similarly apply, "nothing says your enemies can't just choose to ignore the effects of drugs either".

That said, as long as your gm is aware that they're not poisons and still allows you to use them as such, it's not a problem.


Magicdealer wrote:

That's not how it works. There's nothing that says power attack can't also be used to add 200 damage to every attack./QUOTE]

i believe power attack has specifics for its damage. this example is invalid.


dragonhunterq wrote:

Nope. Drugs are not poisons. You cannot use them offensively.

If your GM wants to allow you to use it offensively then they need to increase the cost to bring it in line with other injury poisons.

Well...no...since the delivery is the same as poisons, they SHOULD be usable even in Combat...it is not matter of DM's judgment...it is just matter to read what is written there.

The real point is that the rules for Drugs are *badly written* and Paizo doesn't seem to be going to emend them any time soon:

Would take *very little*...just saying that drugs an additional Fortitude save is necessary for the effect AND the ability damage to take place, but the check *could be forfeited*:

If you want the positive effect of the drug, YOU HAVE to fail or forfeit your saving throw.

Moreover, the other problem is that people consider drugs because they are powerful due to the biased moralistic approach taken by the design team in preparing the rules:

Drugs are "bad", so the addiction DC save should be high and the ability damage should be nasty!

Why?

Poison is GOOD?

The point is that they seem to be spending huge amount of time and effort *nerfing* stuff, designing customized stuff to "force" players to take up a new class, archetype or race (and buy the new product) to take advantage of the new feature, etc...

...INSTEAD of truly focusing on providing rule mechanics with a truly coherent vision in mind!

There is nothing wrong in wanting to sell one's product, but nerfing stuff and coming up with incompatible stuff (incompatible archetypes, race-specific Feats that has nothing race-specific, etc...) to use new features or Feat taxes to "un-nerf" their over-nerfing...well...frankly that seems a bit *excessive*!

However, in my opinion that is the main problem with the drug mechanics:

They are too focused on releasing new products that are, in turn, focused on "forcing the hand" of the player in buying them and playing the X or Y class/race/archetype that will NOT be supported anywhere else to polish the existing rule (honestly it is pretty clear with Ultimate Wilderness: It is such a broken piece of publishing that my DM forbid its use at our gaming table...a lot of nice ideas, but badly implemented or implemented in an unpolished way or with an excess of nerfing...and that way? Well...now there is Starfinder...they are somehow "distracted"!)...

...they "nerf" things that *shouldn't* be nerfed as they do...in fact the "nerfing" seems more and more focused on making existing things useless to add this extra feat or magic item to artificially generate desire for the next product ("Oh...they add the feat Y that un-nerf the poisons, the drugs, the whatever!")...

...and then, sometimes, take a "political" approach that nothing have to do with delivering good rule systems!

( Do you want to take a "goody-goody approach" about drugs when killing and looting is fine? OK...don't put them in your books!

No drugs in your books...that is the truly to-the-core moralistic approach to the topic!

But if you put them, do so with a decently-written rule system associated with them...not this broken stuff! )

Skarm


Skarm wrote:

Well...no...since the delivery is the same as poisons, they SHOULD be usable even in Combat...it is not matter of DM's judgment...it is just matter to read what is written there.

The real point is that the rules for Drugs are *badly written* and Paizo doesn't seem to be going to emend them any time soon:

It's always a matter of DM's judgment. The major reason we have a Rules Forum is because the rules aren't always obvious, and many players try to skew the rules to their favor when interpreting them.

Have you heard of a player who bought armor/weapons made of Gold, and then sold it for profit?
...during character creation?
The player started with unlimited gold on a lv 1 character, and thought he was clever for having 'won' over the system.

This is a clear example of when a DM needs to step in, and tell them that:
"This exploit you're insisting is Rules-as-Written will severely unbalance the game, and was clearly not intended to work as it disrupts all attempt at fair play. Therefore, I'll not allow it."

In the whole section of drugs, there is no mention of offensive use.
Those with a smidgen of consideration for game balance can easily tell that drugs were not intended for offensive use.
Therefore, drugs should not be used for offensive use.
For example, would you be alright with your GM using a no-save unconsciousness drug on you (Dreamtime Tea)?

No you would not.

***********************

Skarm wrote:

Moreover, the other problem is that people consider drugs because they are powerful due to the biased moralistic approach taken by the design team in preparing the rules:

Drugs are "bad", so the addiction DC save should be high and the ability damage should be nasty!

Why?

Poison is GOOD?

Skarm wrote:

...and then, sometimes, take a "political" approach that nothing have to do with delivering good rule systems!

( Do you want to take a "goody-goody approach" about drugs when killing and looting is fine? OK...don't put them in your books!

This feels wildly out of context in the Rules Forum. No matter what your beliefs are on the subject of drugs, what we are discussing here is whether or not drugs in the game of pathfinder can be used offensively.


Wonderstell wrote:


Have you heard of a player who bought armor/weapons made of Gold, and then sold it for profit?
...during character creation?
The player started with unlimited gold on a lv 1 character, and thought he was clever for having 'won' over the system.

No. How he tried to pull off that??

Wonderstell wrote:


In the whole section of drugs, there is no mention of offensive use.
Those with a smidgen of consideration for game balance can easily tell that drugs were not intended for offensive use.
Therefore, drugs should not be used for offensive use.
For example, would you be alright with your GM using a no-save unconsciousness drug on you (Dreamtime Tea)?

No you would not.

Well...our DM just unleashed on us a creature that, when I checked was CR + 5, alongside with supporting NPCs (not few, many) just to "prove a point" (whatever it was).

While he didn't kill us as we fled the encounter, I didn't appreciate that *much* neither...felt a completely unnecessary "bullying/power show off", also considering that we had already being brutally mauled by the main "bad guy" because of his very debatable "game balancing" decisions (we have a 25 point party...ok...but not a 30-40 point party...in fact, we have been attacked in sequence by three different encounters in the same room)...

The main point is that, if a rule is broken, one should try to "fix" it by house ruling, not come up with absurd solutions like
"Hey? It is not written it can be used offensively... so...well...when you try to wield that *sword replica* against your opponent turns into a BANANA!!".

Seems that we have a significant difference on point of view:

You seem to be persuaded that it is 100% fine to take a completely unrealistic solution just because the rule are badly written, which seems a bit the equivalent of "mosaic censuring" a mistake left unsolved by Paizo.

I think the DM should step in much more than being just a bothersome "No-man", who just exclude what he is not comfortable managing, and provide a *workable* alternative...

In this case, treating drugs as a poison by adding a forfeitable saving throw seem completely reasonable...
Skarm


Skarm wrote:

The main point is that, if a rule is broken, one should try to "fix" it by house ruling, not come up with absurd solutions like

"Hey? It is not written it can be used offensively... so...well...when you try to wield that *sword replica* against your opponent turns into a BANANA!!".

The difference here is that the drug rules aren't broken.

They're clear in what they do, and only ever mentions "characters" as the recipients. Not "Targets", or "Enemies".

Using drugs offensively is like playing a game of chess, and declaring that your queen walks 'upwards' to check the opponent's king.

You're not abiding by the rules of the game, you're inventing your own with the basis that "the queen can walk in any direction she wants".

The absurd solution isn't to say 'no'.
The absurd solution is to allow that.


Wonderstell wrote:

The difference here is that the drug rules aren't broken. They're clear in what they do, and only ever mentions "characters" as the recipients. Not "Targets", or "Enemies".

Using drugs offensively is like playing a game of chess, and declaring that your queen walks 'upwards' to check the opponent's king.

You're not abiding by the rules of the game, you're inventing your own with the basis that "the queen can walk in any direction she wants".

The absurd solution isn't to say 'no'.
The absurd solution is to allow that.

I am sorry, but what you are stating it is not "broken" is like you stating "I am Napoleon" and expect people to agree with you instead of questioning your sanity!

We are talking about:

a) *Mundane non-magical* substances...so no "magic" to suspend the belief about the fact that they could apply to the person X and not to the person Y.
b) Substances that have a *precise delivery method*, which is *exactly the same* as poison.
c) Substances that deal ability damage as a way to track the "accumulation" of substance within the organism...which is what for poison is managed through increased DC and duration...so, in fact, we have two distinct way of simulating the *very same* real-world mechanism: *Bio-accumulation*! In fact the point is that, since the nature is essentially the same, they should have been managed in a similar way...but no...because of the usual incoherence between mechanics of different books, they manage in two different ways!
d) Ability damage as direct effect and ability damage as "tracking method" effect are essentially *the same* but the problem with the latter is that is simply *too powerful*...in fact, it is an unexpected problem with a *badly designed rule*!

What you are telling me is that "You are Napoleon" because the phrase "You are Napoleon" is correct in English...yeah...sure...the rule can say anything in a very correct English and even refer to the "character"...apart from the fact that "character" is both PLAYER character and NON-PLAYER character...so "character" doesn't mean ANYTHING!!

According to your "logic"...which is merely "tying the ox wherever would let you" align yourself with Paizo is saying and saying "it is right"...a character wouldn't be able to voluntarily poison himself, because he's not a *target*!!

A monster wouldn't be affected by drugs...but a NON-PLAYER CHARACTER WOULD, because it is a *character*!

And what about MADNESS? In the description, there is written PERSON and CREATURE...what is the right one? It will affect a PERSON (= humanoid creature) or a CREATURE (any creature)??!

As for "taking", "make use", etc... OBVIOUSLY those terms are used, because USUALLY people VOLUNTARILY take them...but spiking a drink with a drug is exactly the same as poisoning someone...as it causes people to "take them" involuntarily!

Now...please...tell me that for you my character can safely drink an ingested poison and be UNAFFECTED, because he's a CHARACTER and not a TARGET!!!
Skarm

P.S.: I am really sorry to point you out, but Paizo's designer accuracy with terms seems far less high than you seem to give them:

The madness example is a clear example of how they sometimes change the term just to *avoid repetition* (which would make a bad text from a proofreading point of view) or just to consider the originally considered use...without paying any attention to the "big picture" and to having a coherent logic between the rules!

P.P.S.: An yes...I am really sorry for you, but, for how much one could not like the rules of chess...the rules of chess retain an internal consistency: They are like they are and no internal conflict. Pathfinder rules are FULL of conflicts and inconsistencies!

Scarab Sages

Danzibe1989 wrote:
Magicdealer wrote:

That's not how it works. There's nothing that says power attack can't also be used to add 200 damage to every attack./QUOTE]

i believe power attack has specifics for its damage. this example is invalid.

It has specifics for trading attack bonus for damage. It doesn't mention anything about just adding damage with no tradeoff. Drugs have specifics about saves and applications. They don't mention anything about being treated as a poison. Both are examples of arbitrarily adding abilities to existing things. The comparison stands.

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