Are drugs considered poisons for resistance / immunity?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


The only differences between them as I can see is that drugs have a temporary positive effect, can cause addiction, and take longer to kill you. The important similarities are that they're non-organisms (so excluding diseases) THAT WILL KILL YOU if they get into your system. Oh and they don't kill you through hit point damage (so excluding weapons and corrosives).

I ask mainly because if alcohol (a drug according to GMG) can be considered a poison, then my lvl 12 Alchemist can out drink anyone living, including dwarves.


Seth Black wrote:

The only differences between them as I can see is that drugs have a temporary positive effect, can cause addiction, and take longer to kill you. The important similarities are that they're non-organisms (so excluding diseases) THAT WILL KILL YOU if they get into your system. Oh and they don't kill you through hit point damage (so excluding weapons and corrosives).

I ask mainly because if alcohol (a drug according to GMG) can be considered a poison, then my lvl 12 Alchemist can out drink anyone living, including dwarves.

RAW is, AFAIK, silent on the issues of drugs but many of the "positive" effects of drugs could very well be negative in game stats. Irrational euphoria could very well be represented by wisdom damage, as your view of the world is skewed, and hallucinations could be a confusion effect.

That said, when something isn't defined within the rules we are assumed to use the real world meaning of the word - and alcohol is a poison. Yes, I'd say anyone immune to poison is immune to alcohol as well - all effects of alcohol, positive or negative. Note though that many living creatures are immune to poisons, including all elementals, many outsiders, and, if they are high enough level, monks, druids, and alchemists. Anyone with access to a large amount of Delay Poison could be equally good too, as fatigue will cause someone to lose before they take the poison damage.


This is an issue for my elven alchemist, who likes to .. ahhh .. sample a fair number of his own "products". I'd have to say yes, that most drugs are poisons. (most recreational drugs = dex and wisdom penalty)


The Iron Liver equipment trait in the Adventurer's Armory is the only place I can think of where poisons and drugs are mentioned separately. Whether or not that was an oversight or deliberate I don't know. In game, I'd treat them separately. Drugs have an additional mechanical feature in addiction that poisons lack. Using the argument that most if not all recreational drugs are poisonous fails to account for the first lesson I learned in my medicininal plants class: that everything is a poison, and that the only difference between a medicine and a poison is dosage.

Liberty's Edge

Seth Black wrote:

The only differences between them as I can see is that drugs have a temporary positive effect, can cause addiction, and take longer to kill you. The important similarities are that they're non-organisms (so excluding diseases) THAT WILL KILL YOU if they get into your system. Oh and they don't kill you through hit point damage (so excluding weapons and corrosives).

I ask mainly because if alcohol (a drug according to GMG) can be considered a poison, then my lvl 12 Alchemist can out drink anyone living, including dwarves.

Can't outdrink a monk...

But seriously, I would go with positive effects without the negative effects.


In previous editions (2e, 3.5) I've ruled that alcohol is a poison and immunity to such means you can't get drunk. I was using common-sense rulings, though, so I don't know if it's actually supported by the rules.


Alway ruled that Drugs and Poisons were the same. Cure Poison, would remove hangover due to being drunk.


I would qualify drugs as poisons in PF with all their effects being poison effects, thus immunity to poisons negating them completly, both negative and positive effects.


Assassin 1: "Hey, let´s poison this guy!"
Assassin 2: "No good, he´s a high level monk."
Assassin 1: "No problem, we´ll use pure alcohol!"

Drugs work like poisons. There are many poisons not considered drugs that are psychoactive. I see no reason to seperate drugs from poisons for such rules.
However, what does "immunity" mean? That you aren´t harmed by something? The body has one mechanism not to be harmed by digested stuff which is called puking. So maybe the assassin´s poison doesn´t kill you but when you drink large quantities of alcohol, your trained body just reacts like it should with poisons - you start vomitting.
As a result, at the morning after the drinking contest the dwarf is rubbing his head in agony while you are at perfect health but he WON the contest since it only counts if you keep it down.
This is one kind of immunity. Of course you can also say that your body just ignores the poison somehow (which is how it rolls for elementals and golems) - depends on what kind of immunity you got. If that´s the case for you, yes you can act like the master of drinking. But you will get bored when the guys start singing real badly, messing with the lyrics and unable to notice how bad they sing.

Oliver McShade wrote:
Alway ruled that Drugs and Poisons were the same. Cure Poison, would remove hangover due to being drunk.

I´m not too sure about that - the hangover comes basically from dehydration (that´s why I use to drink glasses of pure water between the cocktails on a party), not from an active poison, most of the alcohol is gone by then


Ksorkrax wrote:


I´m not too sure about that - the hangover comes basically from dehydration (that´s why I use to drink glasses of pure water between the cocktails on a party), not from an active poison, most of the alcohol is gone by then

That is incorrect. Alcohol breaks down into acetaldehyde, which is a lot more toxic than alcohol, and definitely counts for a lot of your hangover.

Dehydration does nothing to improve matters, of course.

I would definitely treat drugs as poison. Why invent special rules for a thing like that?


Quote:
what does "immunity" mean?

It means "has no effect on whatsoever" immune to fire doesn't mean your skin falls off to protect you it means you don't even notice it is there


Monks have Wholeness of Body at 7th level.... They do not need Drugs

Druids/Cleric have Cure light wounds at 1st level.... they do not need Drugs.


Ksorkrax wrote:
However, what does "immunity" mean? That you aren´t harmed by something? The body has one mechanism not to be harmed by digested stuff which is called puking. So maybe the assassin´s poison doesn´t kill you but when you drink large quantities of alcohol, your trained body just reacts like it should with poisons - you start vomitting.

Vomiting is not immunity. It is actually effect of saving organism from toxins that it is not immune to. In our world no know living creature has universal poison immunity, unlike creatures from fantasy settings (unliving creatures could have such immunity, except there are no known unliving creatures in our world). There might be such creatures if there is life in other worlds if it was based on chemistry so completly alien to ours that no physical substance could posibly disrupt their bodily operations, but only thing I can think of at the moment would be hot plasma-based inorganic life (don't ask me how their plasma based metabolism would work however, except it would ionized and heat any matter coming in contact with them that it would turn plasma as well losing most of its previous, solid/liquid/gaseous qualities - probably).

There are specific immunities however (much more often to disease than poisons) and most of them do not involve retching poison but rather ignoring their effects and slow removal of poison through regular excretion.

Quote:
Of course you can also say that your body just ignores the poison somehow (which is how it rolls for elementals and golems) - depends on what kind of immunity you got. If that´s the case for you, yes you can act like the master of drinking. But you will get bored when the guys start singing real badly, messing with the lyrics and unable to notice how bad they sing.

Yes, poison immunity that cannot be voluntarily suspended makes drinking alcohol mostly pointless - at least from the point of entertainment. In standard medieval-like fantasy setting drinking alcohol is much safer than drinking water and poison immunity does not confer immunity to water-transfered diseases so even poison immune character might find drinking alcohol reasonable.


Shadow_of_death wrote:
Quote:
what does "immunity" mean?
It means "has no effect on whatsoever" immune to fire doesn't mean your skin falls off to protect you it means you don't even notice it is there

Point is that d20 tends to be simple - if a rule works and uses only a few words, it´s in. So in my opinion a "system immunity" could be something other as a "real world immunity" - I tend to think about what makes sense for a character (altough that vomitting stuff was mere brainstorming from my side)

Drejk wrote:


In standard medieval-like fantasy setting drinking alcohol is much safer than drinking water...

Well, it´s not like you adopt that many ways of living from the dark ages, I mean, what was the last time your heroes get bitten by bedbugs, walked over human feces, barely covered with straw, that lied on the ground of the streets of the capital town or tought that 60 years is an age only a few people will ever reach? Such stuff causes severe problems a fantasy heroe seems to encouter only in special campaigns if at all


Ksorkrax wrote:
If that´s the case for you, yes you can act like the master of drinking. But you will get bored when the guys start singing real badly, messing with the lyrics and unable to notice how bad they sing.

I dunno about boredom: I've found that the most enjoyable part of drunkenness is when it happens to other people. Especially if they pass out. Then the mustache painting begins.

And I realize that my lvl 12 Alchemist can't out drink anyone who is likewise immune to poison. What you end up with is a stalemate.


Lathiira wrote:
The Iron Liver equipment trait in the Adventurer's Armory is the only place I can think of where poisons and drugs are mentioned separately. Whether or not that was an oversight or deliberate I don't know. In game, I'd treat them separately. Drugs have an additional mechanical feature in addiction that poisons lack. Using the argument that most if not all recreational drugs are poisonous fails to account for the first lesson I learned in my medicininal plants class: that everything is a poison, and that the only difference between a medicine and a poison is dosage.

Alcohol is a poison, that is literally what it is. The only reason alcohol is mentioned separately under the "Iron Liver" trait is because you only get a +2 to generic poisons/drugs, whereas you get a greater bonus of +4 to alcohol specifically, it being a subset of all poisons. They are most certainly not two separate things.

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