That's deeply cool. And I am never letting you touch my trousers.In a former career, I was a stage magician. I did a stage pick-pocket routine. What makes belts hard is the buckle. If you can get that undone, the unthreading of a belt is one of the easer, and more spectacular, steals.
So, a rogue with a ring of knock can probably steal your magic Constitution belt.
Oh definitely! :D Stay away from my trousers too - I have a 29-inch waist and my trousers never stay up otherwise!
i.e. if you have 10 Con and a Belt of Con +4, and you take 10 points of Con damage, then you die. You have lost all of your normal body. It isn't inherent Constitution, therefore your physical body does not benefit from magical Con bonuses (only your bodies reaction to damage (hp) and invasion (Fort)).
Thoughts?
That's the rule I always use in my campaigns. Magical stat boosts do not add to a stat of 0, so you will be paralysed at Str/Dex 0 and dead at Con 0.
Well, you can kill that person if you put more then one dose in it. One dose = one save and one poison effect.
X doses = x saves and x poison effects.
Can you put more than one dose of poison in a wine cup? That would allow it to be more deadly.Also much easier to detect. And there are solubility limits to consider, unless all poisons are magically "infinitely soluble."
DM: "You pick up yuor wine glass, and notice the red liquid has black swirls in it, and there's a whole lot of powder in the bottom of the cup, and it smells like formaldehyde."
Player: "Oh. We must be using Pathfinder rules for poison!"
I have had the chance to play the Dune rpg and anyone who knows the Dune books will be aware that poison is a big issue in that universe.
The issue with poisons here is the same, basically, the more available and more deadly the poisons are, the more common defences against them become. Thus, you only die from poison in Dune if you are stupid or if your doctor is dead. There are personal poison detectors, detectors in the lights, detectors in the walls, food tasters and detectors in constantly worn items like rings.
Weapon poison may well still get you, but food poison really should not.
If we move this situation to D&D, then we have the same arms race. An effective poison world means that poison becomes weapon of choice. If weapons can be poisoned, they will be and if it can be put into food or in clothes etc, then that will be seen a great deal. Then, in order to survive, everyone will be wearing magically crafted poison immunity rings and they will probably be quite affordable and a business in themselves.
So, from what i can see, the poisons listed in the rules are basically incapacitants, they are not intended to kill, merely to slow or weaken. This means that any lethal poison is something that the GM has to introduce personally into the campaign, which is a good thing as the consquences can be severe.
Do such poisons even need rules? I guess we are talking about various levels of "save or die" really. Considering that this is only balanced by cash and not by level as spells are, thats quite a serious move. Adventurers traditionally have access to silly money, so balancing this out will be hard.
My suggestion would be that, should "save or die" poison exist, that it have some sort of delay mechanism, to allow for a cure spell or antitoxin to be introduced. This, at least, means that noble folk can have a court wizard or other bod on hand just in case. Similarly, it means that your players have a chance to save themselves when it inevitably happens to them (and it will). A couple of rounds isnt really a long time in game terms, but it allows for some attempt at healing, for those who are prepared.
Great post, Thed, with lots of (hopefully poison-free) food for thought. Thanks!
Persuant to your last point, I'd be in favor of a 1-round delay (minimum) for weapon poisons, and 1 minute (minimum) for ingested ones.
I have had the chance to play the Dune rpg and anyone who knows the Dune books will be aware that poison is a big issue in that universe.
The issue with poisons here is the same, basically, the more available and more deadly the poisons are, the more common defences against them become. Thus, you only die from poison in Dune if you are stupid or if your doctor is dead. There are personal poison detectors, detectors in the lights, detectors in the walls, food tasters and detectors in constantly worn items like rings.
Weapon poison may well still get you, but food poison really should not.
If we move this situation to D&D, then we have the same arms race. An effective poison world means that poison becomes weapon of choice. If weapons can be poisoned, they will be and if it can be put into food or in clothes etc, then that will be seen a great deal. Then, in order to survive, everyone will be wearing magically crafted poison immunity rings and they will probably be quite affordable and a business in themselves.
So, from what i can see, the poisons listed in the rules are basically incapacitants, they are not intended to kill, merely to slow or weaken. This means that any lethal poison is something that the GM has to introduce personally into the campaign, which is a good thing as the consquences can be severe.
Do such poisons even need rules? I guess we are talking about various levels of "save or die" really. Considering that this is only balanced by cash and not by level as spells are, thats quite a serious move. Adventurers traditionally have access to silly money, so balancing this out will be hard.
My suggestion would be that, should "save or die" poison exist, that it have some sort of delay mechanism, to allow for a cure spell or antitoxin to be introduced. This, at least, means that noble folk can have a court wizard or other bod on hand just in case. Similarly, it means that your players have a chance to save themselves when it inevitably happens to them (and it will). A couple of rounds...
This does not explain natural poisons that are supposed to kill normal people. I think the system of poisons doing damage from 2e is better then the current system.
Well, again, thats an interesting problem, with the "natural poisons". You are quite right to raise it.
One of the strange things about our real world is that the most poisonous creatures are usually the least threatening in a fight. They tend to be very small, fairly easily avoided and rare. Tiny spiders, jellyfish, pufferfish, not really "monster threats", more like "terrain hazards". You could even consider real world poisonous monsters to be more like traps.
In D&D, a highly poisonous creature is likely to be pretty tough in its own right. Whereas in our world, such creatures survived our purges by being small and sneaky, in D&D they likely got bigger and meaner (hence their xp value). If there were save or die spiders in D&D, then with magic and fire, people would have gotten rid of the pests in anywhere that is in the least bit civilised.
Again, treating such threats as a terrain hazard or trap is a good plan, especially if you are using the "tiny poisonous spider lives in the hole" trick. A swarm is a different matter entirely and a good mix of the two, because the creatures stay small but in a swarm are a proper monster challenge. Big bugs are likely to be less poisonous, however, for all the reasons outline above, including the fact that they are big and thus don't need poison to be that great.
As an aside, many creatures prefer poisons that paralyse or weaken, so that they can drag their victims off as a fresh meal or for their young to snack on. Deadly poison is unusual as a defence, especially instant deadly poison (australian hospitals have lots of anti-venoms in stock and they are usually able to employ them).
As far as i know, the issue here is that D&D monsters tend to get better poison than a party member can "extract" from them. Again, this loss of potency does, i think, make some sense. However, you can play around with the dosage to compensate, i guess. Regardless, that all goes back to what i said in my previous post, relating to game balance and use.
I havent really done your comment on the "poisons doing damage" alternative much justice there, i think that sounds very interesting and needs a detailed examination. I may post one later, mainly i`m just musing on the issue of creatures and poison.
I would say that poisons doing damage like inflict spells (resist for half etc) sounds like a fair option. Very good idea, Archangel. It would still need balance in the form of cost or rarity, however, otherwise you are effectively giving out deadly spells to low level characters or threats.
It does raise the interesting issue of toughness versus con. You would need to include a fortitude save somewhere, or you are effectively saying that a con 18 wizard has less right to avoid poison than a lower con barbarian. Including the con roll would help alleviate that somewhat. Better "Save or die" than "class or die".
Ability damage over time, as the current model, allows for (a) debilitation without death, and (b) delay for the use of antivenin, both of which seem to be key points. The only thing they don't allow is death without treatment, because the max durations aren't long enough. Simply adding a few more rounds/minutes to those durations, from my viewpoint, would do the trick (hp damage from poisons just doesn't do it for me).
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Ability damage over time, as the current model, allows for (a) debilitation without death, and (b) delay for the use of antivenin, both of which seem to be key points. The only thing they don't allow is death without treatment, because the max durations aren't long enough. Simply adding a few more rounds/minutes to those durations, from my viewpoint, would do the trick (hp damage from poisons just doesn't do it for me).
Ideas I've considered;
1) Having the duration based on number of saves made (need to make two consecutive saves, or three total, or whatever), like with some diseases,
2) Having duration based on the quality of the save made (make save? No damage this 'tick,' roll again on next interval. Make save by five? All done, you beat the poison.) and / or
3) Having duration based on different time intervals (using a system like the Mutants & Masterminds 'time and duration progression chart' that starts at 1 round, then goes up to 1 minute, 10 minutes, an hour, 8 hours, a day, etc. So the venom would have a faster-paced initial delivery, but then linger around causing progressive damage if not treated / beaten.).
Any, or some combination of all, of these tweaks would make poison that much deadlier, not initially, but as a longer-term threat over time.
Having poisons and diseases be less effectively treated by Remove Disease and Neutralize Poison (having both be reduced one spell level and replaced with spells that grant a bonus to Heal checks to treat them) is another solution, one which Pathfinder seems to be going towards.
Having poisons and disease exist in DC ranges, and be modifiable by appropriate Crafters would allow for higher-level adversaries to have some ridiculous DC 35 or 40 poison or whatever to use against the king.
Set, those are all good ideas.
I'd especially love to see craft (poisonmaking), detection and identification of poisons, and the assassin's poison use and bonus to poison save class features all get combined into a new Toxicology skill.
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Set, those are all good ideas.
I'd especially love to see craft (poisonmaking), detection and identification of poisons, and the assassin's poison use and bonus to poison save class features all get combined into a new Toxicology skill.
I'm not sure about the poison save bonus, but I'd definitely like to see some sort of consistent Craft (poison) skill. Perhaps 5 ranks of Craft (poison) could give a +2 synergy bonus to rolls to Heal checks to resist poison, and Search / Spot rolls to detect poison, as well.
The Poison Use without fear of poisoning oneself would also be a logical thing to have require a certain number of ranks, just as you need X ranks of Climb to be able to Climb and retain your Dex bonus to AC. Setting that also at 5 ranks would be cool, and put it *just* out of reach for 1st level wannabe-poisoners...
Adding to the +2 to the resist DC of a poison could add +5 to the craft DC, for instance.