Can you apply poison to bombs?

[Goblins Eighty-Five]

This is the question my player asked. For now, I am allowing the player to add contact poison to them.

[Joseph Raiten]

Goblins Eighty-Five wrote:

This is the question my player asked. For now, I am allowing the player to add contact poison to them.

wow ... I see where the player is going... but I am not sure how effective a poison that will be engulfed in an explosive blast would be. that said it is really creative ... and I don't know it wouldn't work.

[PullusSanguis]

I think contact poison is a good call but it would only effect the creature who got a direct hit, like adding contact poison to a pine cone or a rock. I wouldn't think the shrapnel would contain poison really. Maybe if it was a Concussive bomb or Force it could be remotely possible for the splash damage to have poison on it but id think for one that does acid, fire, or even frost it would engulf the poison.

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Goblins Eighty-Five wrote:

This is the question my player asked. For now, I am allowing the player to add contact poison to them.

Why apply poison to the outside of a bomb when you can have a poison bomb that releases a poisonous cloud on detonation?

[kyrt-ryder]

I know I personally would allow them to intentionally build poison grenades so to speak, bombs filled with sharp shrapnel, coated with contact or injury poison, with the bomb design set up in such a way as to preserve the poison indefinitely and not destroy it in the blast.

Hitting somebody with Xd6 damage AND subjecting them to con damage could be alot of fun :D

[Goblins Eighty-Five]

I don't think the player's intention was to poison anyone other than the person she hit with the bomb.

[taeko]

hmm hive mind, one of my players tried to do this also. sofar i have only let them do it with foce and sonic dmg bombs, and with contact poison. they have put in a request for both the poison cloud idea and also the poison shrapnel.

i was thinking if they take the smoke bomb discovery they could "imbune" the smoke bomb into a poison vial of inhalation poison and then any one who moved through there would experiance the poison cloud.

as for the shrapnel bomb i was thinking it would take its own discovery that would instead make a bomb that would cause the every one to bleed for the splash dmg amount and then they could do as above and "imbune" a shrapnel bomb into a injury poison vial.

the only problem i have here is this puts a monetary cost on a class ablity which isnt realy in the norm...

and also because it may come up: what happens when the palyers "imbune" a vial which holds more than one does of poison?

[Hunterofthedusk]

Well, at level twelve you can make your bombs release poisonous clouds via the poison bomb discovery, duplicating the effects of Cloudkill. If he wants to chuck bombs full of poison, he can do this after level 12.

Question for those who allowed their player to put contact poison on the vial: How did they throw it without poisoning themselves? Mundane gloves have never really been taken into account and by the rules don't protect you, and you only get impunity from poison during the application process (until level 10), and even after level 10 you would still be wiping the poison off (by taking the dose of contact poison upon yourself) when you grab it to throw. The whole thing just seems rather goofy to me

[Goblins Eighty-Five]

Hunterofthedusk wrote:

Question for those who allowed their player to put contact poison on the vial: How did they throw it without poisoning themselves? Mundane gloves have never really been taken into account and by the rules don't protect you, and you only get impunity from poison during the application process (until level 10), and even after level 10 you would still be wiping the poison off (by taking the dose of contact poison upon yourself) when you grab it to throw. The whole thing just seems rather goofy to me

You bring up some good points.

Well, I guess you could say that the bomb is attached to some rope, and thrown in a manner similar to bolas; nothing is stopping us from assuming that is how the Alchemist throws bombs.

Personally, I like the idea of bombs with pointed ends, allowing you to apply poison that takes effect upon damaging a person. They could be thrown just like a lawn-dart.

Just brain-storming of course.

[DizzyDev]

Hunterofthedusk wrote:

Question for those who allowed their player to put contact poison on the vial: How did they throw it without poisoning themselves? Mundane gloves have never really been taken into account and by the rules don't protect you, and you only get impunity from poison during the application process (until level 10), and even after level 10 you would still be wiping the poison off (by taking the dose of contact poison upon yourself) when you grab it to throw. The whole thing just seems rather goofy to me

Thats what the sticky poison discovery is for...

[dulsin]

If you make a poison bomb you don't want an explosion. Large fireballs tend to break down most of the interesting chemicals.

Use the bomb like a CS grenade to disperse a cloud of toxin over a large area. i.e. Replace the bomb damage with a poison cloud 10' larger than the area effect of the regular bomb.

[Abraham spalding]

dulsin wrote:

If you make a poison bomb you don't want an explosion. Large fireballs tend to break down most of the interesting chemicals.

Use the bomb like a CS grenade to disperse a cloud of toxin over a large area. i.e. Replace the bomb damage with a poison cloud 10' larger than the area effect of the regular bomb.

So use the poisonous bomb discovery then?

[Scipion del Ferro]

I think it would be interesting if the alchemist could use their Sticky Poison discovery to split their poison into that many doses. So you could apply it to all of your bombs for one day, or all the weapons in the party for one attack, or a goodly portion of arrows in a quiver.

It makes sense that you can poison a sword to last for 5-6 rounds, but the poor archer get's to use 200g on one shot, and if he misses better hope the arrow isn't destroyed. While the sword only uses a strike if it hits.

This leads up to helping the Alchemist poison multiple bombs. Since clearly they won't benefit from the Sticky Poison discovery the way it's currently worded.

Perhaps only inhaled poisons should be allowed for bombs, not contact poisons. You could consider it as integrating the poison into the bomb and using the bomb as a dispersal agent.

[Kraven Evilfart]

its sticky poison, not dilute poison. The poison remains attached to the item it is applied to after a successful hit instead of being absorbed/wiped off.

a dilute poison discovery would be cool to create multiple uses from a poison much like dilute works for potions or elixirs, would definitely make poisons much more cost efficient.

[Scipion del Ferro]

Yeah, need something like that. Right now Sticky Poison is really only benefiting about half the people who use poisons.