I derived that out of the "Problem with saves" thread 'cause it was offtopic but interessting I think.
Maybe it's really just a problem with poison rules. Now they're unbalanced, because poisons are way too cheap. Ok they are quite ineffective, but the 1 looses rule makes a high DC unnecessary when you have many attacks.
Ok, let's increase the price. But which poison you choose: The DC 20 one for 20.000GM or the DC 15 one for 15.000? When your opponents start to have sufficient Fortitude saves to fail only on the roll of 1 I take the DC 1 alcohol dip for 1000...
Higher levels exclude this option.Solution: don't give poison to PC's/NPC's with character classes, make it a monster only thing. Than the 1 looses rule is ok.
I always found 3e's poisons to be weak and nothing to sweat over...that really needs fixed
Poisons got nerfed big-time in Pathfinder. Instead of 1d6 Con/2d6 Con, with separate saves, you now have things like 2 Con/round until you save once, or until 5 rounds go by, whichever comes first. Which means a human commoner with an 11 Con used to fail 2 saves and potentially be dead; now he can fail 5 saves and still be alive -- and if he makes any of those saves, he automatically makes the rest!
It's the nail in the coffin for the Assassin prestige class: they lost their spells, and the effectiveness of their poison use. Which, I'm very sorry to say, nicely fits the trend of putting melee combatants except rogues out to pasture as quickly as possible.
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Yeah, 1E AD&D. 2nd Ed. is where they started in with the nerf bats...I miss my type F... *tear*XX here. Pure nasty ;)Never even heard of that!
Is that first edition by chance? Alas I only own the 2nd edition AD&D DMG... *shame*
I'll get those books one of these days.
My player's won't know what hit 'em when I ask if they want to play a new game.
Here's how we've been using poison.
Whenever a creature is affected by poison they must make a save at the beginning of their turn each round. Failure means that they take 1 point of whatever damage the poison deals. Success means they do not take damage that round, but must again make a save next round until the poison's duration ends.
The duration of a poison is determined randomly based on the potential total damage that the poison can do.
For example, Bob the Fighter gets stung by a wyvern and injected with poison. The DM rolls 4d6 (which is the potential total damage that a wyvern's poison deals) and gets 16.
Bob the Fighter must make a Fort save every round for the next 16 rounds and take 1 point of Con damage each time he fails the save.
This can be mitigated by spells, antitoxin, Heal skill checks or whatever else the character or his allies can come up with during the duration of being poisoned.
We have found that this makes poison a viable threat, and I have seen my players stocking up on antitoxins, neutralize poison and delay poison scrolls, etc. It was especially enjoyable when the cleric, who has a good Fort save, was feeling pretty puny after a battle with a Poisonous Fiendish T-rex (Poisonous template out of the Advanced Bestiary).
This really seems to put a bit of fear back into poisons, which I think is not a bad thing.
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Yeah, 1E AD&D. 2nd Ed. is where they started in with the nerf bats...I miss my type F... *tear*XX here. Pure nasty ;)Never even heard of that!
Is that first edition by chance? Alas I only own the 2nd edition AD&D DMG... *shame*
I'll get those books one of these days.
My player's won't know what hit 'em when I ask if they want to play a new game.
If your players don't like lethal games, a la Shadowrun, Cthulhu, etc., they probably wouldn't dig AD&D (1e) too much. If you survive to 15th level in AD&D, playing it straight, you really feel like you did something...
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If your players don't like lethal games, a la Shadowrun, Cthulhu, etc., they probably wouldn't dig AD&D (1e) too much. If you survive to 15th level in AD&D, playing it straight, you really feel like you did something...Yeah, 1E AD&D. 2nd Ed. is where they started in with the nerf bats...I miss my type F... *tear*XX here. Pure nasty ;)Never even heard of that!
Is that first edition by chance? Alas I only own the 2nd edition AD&D DMG... *shame*
I'll get those books one of these days.
My player's won't know what hit 'em when I ask if they want to play a new game.
Yeah, I doubt they'd like the game. They all started with 3.5 so they've been coddled to be sure.
Still, I figure I can eke one session of suffering out of them before too much whining ensues. :D
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2011 Top 16
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Here's how we've been using poison.
Whenever a creature is affected by poison they must make a save at the beginning of their turn each round. Failure means that they take 1 point of whatever damage the poison deals. Success means they do not take damage that round, but must again make a save next round until the poison's duration ends.
The duration of a poison is determined randomly based on the potential total damage that the poison can do.
For example, Bob the Fighter gets stung by a wyvern and injected with poison. The DM rolls 4d6 (which is the potential total damage that a wyvern's poison deals) and gets 16.
Bob the Fighter must make a Fort save every round for the next 16 rounds and take 1 point of Con damage each time he fails the save.
This can be mitigated by spells, antitoxin, Heal skill checks or whatever else the character or his allies can come up with during the duration of being poisoned.
We have found that this makes poison a viable threat, and I have seen my players stocking up on antitoxins, neutralize poison and delay poison scrolls, etc. It was especially enjoyable when the cleric, who has a good Fort save, was feeling pretty puny after a battle with a Poisonous Fiendish T-rex (Poisonous template out of the Advanced Bestiary).
This really seems to put a bit of fear back into poisons, which I think is not a bad thing.
Yeah that might make a PC, even a High Level one think twice about poisons... using them that is!
Poisons & disease in 3.x were just not a threat after about 3rd level. If anything there needs to be a few that are deadly.
--Toxic Vrock Syndrome
Well, seems everyone missed my point... I should have been clearer.
Poisons in 3.X were weak. Most of them. The problems occur when using a poison which has nasty conditions as result, doing this with many attacks and combining it with the "1 always looses" rule. The DC's are a bad joke, correct, but when using helpless making poisons your party is dead within rounds just because of this one rule.
There I see the problem, which comes up in the realms of high-level DnD.
