Quick question regarding the Toxic ability of the Vishkanya, it states,
A number of times per day equal to its Constitution modifier (minimum 1/day), a vishkanya can envenom a weapon that it wields with its toxic saliva or blood (using blood requires the vishkanya to be injured when it uses this ability). Applying venom in this way is a swift action.
My question is, how long does a weapon stayed envenomed for? Could a Vishkanya simply spit on their weapons before sleeping to have them be poisoned the next day?
Poison applied to a weapon lasts for one successful hit. I assume this would work the same way.
As far as I know, there are no rules for poison "degrading" over time. So your Vishkanya could indeed poison a weapon the night (or week, or year) before using it and it would stay effective. One might work out some logical duration with the GM, but the rules themselves are simply silent (other than the "one hit" thing, obviously).
There are also no poison "milking" rules that I can find, be they for Vishkanyas, Wyverns, or anything else. Strictly, the Vishkanya can only put poison on a weapon that it wields. You could claim the Vishkanya is wielding a bottle as an improvised weapon so it would count, but you wouldn't be able to transfer the poison to anything else afterwards. If you wanted to poison food, you would have to wield it as a weapon before spitting in it for the ability to function.
As this is kind of nonsense, I don't think most people would object to a house rule letting you "milk" whatever poison you could make for the day. But strictly, this is how it would seem to work.
Similar thing happened in group that plays in the same place as mine. A druid with a viper companion (I think) wanted to extract venom for later use.
Their GM ruled a few things about poison after discussing it with his players and our group:
Poison/Venom lasts for 1 week before degrading. That is, assuming it's not dilluted someway(like a rogue going for a swim while holding his poisoned dagger)or used. Exceptions could be made for magic/rare poisons/venoms.
So the druid could have 7 doses of poison/venom from a single source (in this case, the viper) at any given time, assuming he took the time to extract and store it, which took about 10min, IIRC.
I guess it's as valid as any other houserule.
Actually, it seems "milking" a poison is a Craft (Alchemy) check. Basically, to take a poison from its natural form (in the creature) to its store-able form you make a craft (alchemy) check equal to the Fort DC of your poison. No idea why "spit into a bottle" should get harder as your level goes up (because the Fort save is based partially on your HD), but that's what it seems like to me.
If you want to save your poisons, invest in the skill all poisoners end up needing anyway. Since you've got "poison use" anyway, you might as well make some other nifty poisons while you're at it.
There are no rules in the book on poisons degrading or being rinsed off that I could find. I'm sure you could intentionally remove it, if you wanted, but that's basically GM fiat.
@Lemmy: So how do you determine how much the poison degrades? Does it go from full potency to non-functional immediately? Do you lessen the duration or the save? Do you weaken the effects?
From what I can tell, poisons are too expensive for their effects anyway, so if one of my PCs was going to specialize in them, I'd try to cut him some slack.