Oil and Poison

[Vaahama]

I've searched trough the whole core rulebook but found anything about how many use of oil or poison you can get out of a regular vial(1 ounce container).

More precisely i would like to know how many "sword like" weapon or projectile tips you can smear with. Either with poison or oil of course.

In case of poison, how many doses you can get out of a regular vial (1 ounce)? Can you poison 1, 2 ,3 or more meal/beer with the same vial?

[Themetricsystem]

It doesn't say specifically because it is intended as a single use item only for melee weapons.

That being said, I think the spirit of the rules would imply that you could coat as many projectiles or ammunition as are sold in a single stack. I.e. 20 arrows, 5 repeating bolts, 10 shuriken etc.

[knightofstyx]

Themetricsystem wrote:

It doesn't say specifically because it is intended as a single use item only for melee weapons.

That being said, I think the spirit of the rules would imply that you could coat as many projectiles or ammunition as are sold in a single stack. I.e. 20 arrows, 5 repeating bolts, 10 shuriken etc.

If that's the case, what poison-user would ever use a melee weapon? One attack vs. 20? I'll go with the arrows, please.

[Themetricsystem]

knightofstyx wrote:

If that's the case, what poison-user would ever use a melee weapon? One attack vs. 20? I'll go with the arrows, please.

Yup, which plays very much on the popular idea of poisoned arrows, darts, and the like. The amount of poison you need to expend is directly related to how much of the surface you need to coat.

For example a longsword would require enough poison to cover from 40-60 inches of steel for the blade and at least 10 if you intend only to stab with it. Opposed to the arrow where you would need maybe 3-4 inches of covering due to the nature of the weapon.

[knightofstyx]

From a game mechanics standpoint that favors the ranged poisoner more heavily than a melee one. That seems unbalanced. Do you have RAW for your ruling or is that your prerogative?

[0gre]

knightofstyx wrote:

Themetricsystem wrote:

It doesn't say specifically because it is intended as a single use item only for melee weapons.

That being said, I think the spirit of the rules would imply that you could coat as many projectiles or ammunition as are sold in a single stack. I.e. 20 arrows, 5 repeating bolts, 10 shuriken etc.

If that's the case, what poison-user would ever use a melee weapon? One attack vs. 20? I'll go with the arrows, please.

As far as I know this is just wrong, You can only poison ONE arrow with a single dose of poison. One dose, one attack.

I'd love to be wrong about this though since my character is an alchemist.

[Themetricsystem]

knightofstyx wrote:

From a game mechanics standpoint that favors the ranged poisoner more heavily than a melee one. That seems unbalanced. Do you have RAW for your ruling or is that your prerogative?

Yeah I do, but it is in sort of a round-about way. The closest effect to poison is magically altering ammo, a good example of which is "Flame Arrow" which alters up to 50 pieces of ammo... that and my own personal GM fiat.

Personally I think poisons are weak enough as it is and giving them a little more "push" isn't exactly a bad thing. Since the rules are silent in terms of RAW then we GM's are to use our best judgment and to me, allowing a dose to affect a stacks worth of ammo makes sense.

[James Jacobs]

Anything that comes in a vial, be it oil or a poison or a potion or alchemist's fire is a single dose, be that a use in combat, application to one weapon, or whatever. The advantage arrows and the like have in this situation is, of course, that you can poison a whole quiver full of arrows and then in combat just go to town with them, whereas with a melee weapon you need to reapply poison after every hit.

[0gre]

Themetricsystem wrote:

knightofstyx wrote:

From a game mechanics standpoint that favors the ranged poisoner more heavily than a melee one. That seems unbalanced. Do you have RAW for your ruling or is that your prerogative?

Yeah I do, but it is in sort of a round-about way. The closest effect to poison is magically altering ammo, a good example of which is "Flame Arrow" which alters up to 50 pieces of ammo... that and my own personal GM fiat.

Personally I think poisons are weak enough as it is and giving them a little more "push" isn't exactly a bad thing. Since the rules are silent in terms of RAW then we GM's are to use our best judgment and to me, allowing a dose to affect a stacks worth of ammo makes sense.

It is really confusing when people toss their house rules into a discussion without qualifying them as such.

In my experience archers are already some of the most deadly folks on the battlefield under Pathfinder. Making rules changes that favor them above melee combatants is not the way I would go to make poison more effective. It would probably make more sense to just reduce the cost of poison rather than favoring ranged poisoning.

[Vaahama]

James Jacobs wrote:

Anything that comes in a vial, be it oil or a poison or a potion or alchemist's fire is a single dose, be that a use in combat, application to one weapon, or whatever. The advantage arrows and the like have in this situation is, of course, that you can poison a whole quiver full of arrows and then in combat just go to town with them, whereas with a melee weapon you need to reapply poison after every hit.

Thank you james for clarifying this for me!

BUT....

I don't buy that part of the rules!
I can't think about myself being a serious DM and telling a player "look pal... you will have to choose between coating that 3 foot long bastard sword OR the tip of that single bolt.... your choice!", sorry!

I will have to "house ruled" something like a full vial of poison/oil can coat 1 projectile as a stadard action OR 5 as a full round, because of the combat stress and spillage.

No offense otherwise i think pathfinder rulesets are just great!

[normanak]

James Jacobs wrote:

Anything that comes in a vial, be it oil or a poison or a potion or alchemist's fire is a single dose, be that a use in combat, application to one weapon, or whatever. The advantage arrows and the like have in this situation is, of course, that you can poison a whole quiver full of arrows and then in combat just go to town with them, whereas with a melee weapon you need to reapply poison after every hit.

Bolding mine. Seems to me James said that a vial of poison covers a whole quiver.

[0gre]

normanak wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

Anything that comes in a vial, be it oil or a poison or a potion or alchemist's fire is a single dose, be that a use in combat, application to one weapon, or whatever. The advantage arrows and the like have in this situation is, of course, that you can poison a whole quiver full of arrows and then in combat just go to town with them, whereas with a melee weapon you need to reapply poison after every hit.

Bolding mine. Seems to me James said that a vial of poison covers a whole quiver.

Err no, he said you can have 20 arrows each with a dose on it in your quiver while a battle axe weilding guy can only have a single dose on his axe.

Edit: The advantage being you can spam poisoned arrows but melee weapons you have to take a full round action to reapply the poison.

[King of Vrock]

What Ogre said... you can pre-apply arrows, but a melee weapon needs to be done IN combat!

--Toxic Vrock Syndrome

[James Jacobs]

Yeah, to poison a quiver full of 20 arrows, you'd need 20 doses of poison.

Whether or not you think you should be able to squeeze out more uses of a vial of poison when you're only poisoning arrowheads as opposed to a greatsword is up to you as a house rule, but that opens up an IMMENSELY complex can of worms.

Does it take the same amount of poison to coat a human's greatsword as it does a halfling's greatsword? What about a pixie's arrows as opposed to a storm giant's arrows? Does it take longer to poison a tiny arrowhead than it does a greatsword? If it takes longer, because you have to coat more surface area, and thus uses up more poison, do you have to worry about poisoning yourself accidentally more often? How much do variant sizes of poison cost? What do different size vials weigh?

Usually when you see a rule that's simplified such as the poison application rules, it's for a reason.

[normanak]

James Jacobs wrote:

Yeah, to poison a quiver full of 20 arrows, you'd need 20 doses of poison.

Oops, my bad.

[uriel222]

James Jacobs wrote:

Yeah, to poison a quiver full of 20 arrows, you'd need 20 doses of poison.

Whether or not you think you should be able to squeeze out more uses of a vial of poison when you're only poisoning arrowheads as opposed to a greatsword is up to you as a house rule, but that opens up an IMMENSELY complex can of worms...

Not only this above, but also: a dose is a dose is a dose. Whether I deliver 20cc of poison via arrowhead of spear tip or sword blade, it's still 20cc of poison.

[Morlaf]

Hello....
Dunno if this is the best threat and apologies if I should have started a separate threat but do you, as the GM, consider oil to be flammable?
I don't, but all the players protest when I do.

Again, Thanks and Sorry...
Morlaf

[Cauthon1041]

Here's my two cents: I can dump a few vials of poison into the bottom of a quiver, enough to coat all the arrow heads, does the same as the poisoning scabbard for weapons.

[blahpers]

That's a good way to poison yourself while not properly treating your weapon for maximum efficacy. The art of poison application is making it effective without risking harm to yourself or your allies--hence why "poison use" is a special ability.

[blahpers]

Morlaf wrote:

Hello....

Dunno if this is the best threat and apologies if I should have started a separate threat but do you, as the GM, consider oil to be flammable?
I don't, but all the players protest when I do.

Again, Thanks and Sorry...
Morlaf

What kind of oil? A flask of oil? Yes, that's rather how the stuff keeps your lantern lit.

[Thomas, A]

James Jacobs wrote:

Yeah, to poison a quiver full of 20 arrows, you'd need 20 doses of poison.

Whether or not you think you should be able to squeeze out more uses of a vial of poison when you're only poisoning arrowheads as opposed to a greatsword is up to you as a house rule, but that opens up an IMMENSELY complex can of worms.

Does it take the same amount of poison to coat a human's greatsword as it does a halfling's greatsword? What about a pixie's arrows as opposed to a storm giant's arrows? Does it take longer to poison a tiny arrowhead than it does a greatsword? If it takes longer, because you have to coat more surface area, and thus uses up more poison, do you have to worry about poisoning yourself accidentally more often? How much do variant sizes of poison cost? What do different size vials weigh?

Usually when you see a rule that's simplified such as the poison application rules, it's for a reason.

oh the butterfly effect of home brew

mess with what god does what: meh no big deal
mess with what 1 vile of poison does: oh dear god what have you done

[Cubali]

James Jacobs wrote:

Yeah, to poison a quiver full of 20 arrows, you'd need 20 doses of poison.

Whether or not you think you should be able to squeeze out more uses of a vial of poison when you're only poisoning arrowheads as opposed to a greatsword is up to you as a house rule, but that opens up an IMMENSELY complex can of worms.

Does it take the same amount of poison to coat a human's greatsword as it does a halfling's greatsword? What about a pixie's arrows as opposed to a storm giant's arrows? Does it take longer to poison a tiny arrowhead than it does a greatsword? If it takes longer, because you have to coat more surface area, and thus uses up more poison, do you have to worry about poisoning yourself accidentally more often? How much do variant sizes of poison cost? What do different size vials weigh?

Usually when you see a rule that's simplified such as the poison application rules, it's for a reason.

The Weapon Blanch items work in this way without any real problem, though; "Coating 1 weapon or up to 10 pieces of ammunition" and the vocabulary used in describing it, (e.g. dose, remaining effective until you make a successful attack), are the same as with poison. I would think that the number of times you would be exposing yourself to accidental self-poisoning, through treating each piece of ammunition and the possibility of rolling a 1 on the attack roll would be the natural counterbalance for the effectiveness of poisons.

And that doesn't even consider the higher risk of wasting the poison involved with projectiles, through unrecovered(lost) arrows from missed shots, (where as the poison isn't expended on a melee weapon until it scores a hit.) Each arrow that misses its target, yet isn't recovered at the end of the battle, due to the 50% chance of being lost or damaged, is essentially 1/10 of your poison expended without scoring a hit, assuming you were using the Weapon Blanch rules for poison. If you weren't its a full vial of poison wasted.

[Jbthoughtful24]

I would say considering the multiple sources that allow melee poisoned weapons to deal poison on more than one strike that it makes some sense to apply to multiple arrows.(Lasting poison rogue talent for one) Using something similar to poison sheath as a custom item. Call it poison quiver if it is a permanent item, or 2 potion sponges at the bottom gently push the arrows into the sponges at the bottom. The sponges would be single use in my mind adding more expenditure for additional utility. You would need to keep track of ammunition closely for this.

Acknowledging that the original intention is to be one vial is one weapon dose as the base rule for application in combat. The time for a poison to expire outside the vial means you need a way to keep out air if you poison ahead of time.

If you use the weapon blanch idea of 1 melee weapon or 10 ammunition, 2 doses for a bundle of 20 arrows or bolts. This makes sense if you can keep the dose from expiring in open air.

In conclusion since sources exist to extend use of poisons on melee weapons one dose per weapon is an application limit for quick and dirty use not the upper limit. Sources exist to apply poison ahead of time so we can make similar items using those and similar ideas as a basis for balance.

[Azothath]

Jbthoughtful24 wrote:

I would say...

It's a Game and PF1 doesn't model oxidation or expiration dates. One way to think of it is as a "consumable" item. Thunderstones, alchemist's fire, weapon blanche, and poison (in a jar or applied) do not expire but have an "overhead" cost your PC pays upfront for an effect when used. PF1 is simpler than D&D 3.5 and has less detail.

There is a poison use check to see if the user poisons himself.

In general, poison is a losing proposition as level and CR increase. The cost of the poison effect quickly outpaces the effect on average. Poison pricing in PF1 is not well modeled, uniform, or consistent.

There's no explicit constraint on stacking different consumables like weapon blanche, poison, oil of bless weapon, etc. They are treated as consumables with somewhat separate effects. You have to inflict damage(blanche & oil) for the poison to be used and affect the target. Some uses break believeability or aren't appropriate and your GM will let you know, so ask and make a skill check before getting too creative.

Spells and coming back from the dead DO use duration and have time constraints. Those are all in the descriptions.

[bbangerter]

If you want to try and model the real world with poison you need to consider what 1 dose of poison means. If I have 1 oz of X, and that is enough to kill a human, but I only give them 1/20th of that 1 oz, is that still enough to kill a human? More likely it might make them feel a bit of nausea, but otherwise have no lasting effects. So if I dip 20 arrows in that poison, all 20 of those arrows need to strike the same target to deliver an effective dosage amount.

[Azothath]

well - real life is complicated. The topic you want to review is toxicology. There's "median lethal dose" which goes by the target's species and weight(kg) mostly.

There are optional poison/disease rules with tracks/stages. You might try those for a touch more realism. The dosage is kept generic to a consumable use.