Why is there not a Poison Use feat?

[Alitan]

Title says it all; in another way, why is poison use relegated to being a class feature? I'm not a fan of dipping levels, and I can't believe that the needful training to not poison yourself couldn't be achieved by means of a feat.

Seriously -- I have to get Rogue levels with the Poisoner archetype, or Assassin levels? (I'd guess Ninja get it, but I kinda loathe 'em, so I wouldn't go that route anyway...)

Anybody else wonder about this?

[blackbloodtroll]

Venom-Drenched trait will make immune to one poison. Alchemist become immune to all.

[zagnabbit]

Some things just aren't feats.
Evasion
Armor Training
Familiars
Uncanny Dodge

None of them are really beyond the capacity of a skilled person to learn but function better as a complement to a set of class features.

Anyone can use poison; applying it in a highly stressful situation under an extremely limited time constraint requires some real skill, more than can be acquired with a feat.

[darkwarriorkarg]

I even question whey it would even take a feat.

Probably a holdover from 1st edition where poison was considered so evil, non-assassins would react badly:

The primary function of assassins is killing. They may use poison, ingested or insinuated by weapon. Ingested poison must be put into the food or drink, and the character performing this action must detail exactly when, where, and how the poisoning will be done; the DM will then adjudicate the action. Poisoned weapons used run the risk of being noticed by others. All non-assassins within 10' of the bared weapon have a 10% cumulative chance each per mr of noting the poison and attacking the poison-using assassin (20%) or calling for the city watch (50%) or both (30%).

Note that this also applied to fellow party members.

Maybe worth custom feat use poison safely, +2 on Craft(alchemy) to create poisons and create poisons twice as fast (minimum 1 day). Does not stack with master alchemist.

[Ciaran Barnes]

There was at least one third-party 3rd ed Poison Use feat. Someone else felt the same as you.

Making it a feat seems reasonable to me, but I've never wanted to be reliant on attacks that both expensive and limited on supply, so in 20+ years I can only think of a couple times I've ever even tried using it.

[Alitan]

Well, it's much LESS expensive and in greater supply when you make your own from scratch. Why ELSE does Craft (Alchemy) exist?

;)

[The Drunken Dragon]

You could just by blackfinger paste...it's pretty cheap and it gives you that ability for a certain number of uses. I'd say good enough. There are other class features that seem reasonable to learn as well but that others cannot obtain, such as, as mentoned above, uncanny dodge, etc. Heck, trapfinding is reasonable for anyone that's worked with traps all their lives, like a trapsmith or something. That doesn't necessarily make them rogues. Still, class ability.

[Serisan]

For some reason, the devs insist that Poison Use is an ability that merits being a class feature. I look at it as fodder for any archetype that could possibly replace it.

[darkwarriorkarg]

Serisan wrote:

For some reason, the devs insist that Poison Use is an ability that merits being a class feature. I look at it as fodder for any archetype that could possibly replace it.

Not to derail...

That, I think, is to throw a bone to the Rogue.

This being said... the Urban and trapper archetypes for the ranger are STILL better rogues if all you need is:
Sneaking around
Finding/Disabling traps

Which, in a pure dungeon crawl, is all you need.

[Alitan]

darkwarriorkarg wrote:

Serisan wrote:

For some reason, the devs insist that Poison Use is an ability that merits being a class feature. I look at it as fodder for any archetype that could possibly replace it.

Not to derail...

That, I think, is to throw a bone to the Rogue.

This being said... the Urban and trapper archetypes for the ranger are STILL better rogues if all you need is:
Sneaking around
Finding/Disabling traps

Which, in a pure dungeon crawl, is all you need.

Poison Use is only a class feature for Rogues with the Poisoner archetype... and they give up trapfinding for it, which imo sucks.

[darkwarriorkarg]

IMHO

Giving up Improved uncanny dodge (a half feature) for not accidentally poisoning yourself (a half feature) would be far more reasonable.