Don't try to make money with your character by crafting, a GM will simply reduce the time-scale of the adventure to fix that. Don't forget there's no rule that says people have to buy your wares, GM can say they can't afford it or don't want it.
Just craft what you actually intend to use, as far as what poisons to use , Priorities go something like this, High DC > 2 saves > CON dmg > STR dmg > DEX dmg
mainly because getting a poison to hit is hard enough without a scaling DC, then keeping it there is the next battle, and if you can do that CON is usually the best target as it reduces CON which not only reduces HP but reduces their Fort save with makes the poison harder to shake.
If you really want to use poison ask your GM kindly to include some decent ones in his loot tables.
And honestly as far as high level poison use goes the DC's aren't going to cut it and even if they did all the really nasty monsters are immune to poisons for the most part
Considering that the poisons you’re making would be considered both illegal and deeply immoral in most societies, I think you might run into problems when it comes to getting raw materials and selling your wares. It’s something of a double whammy threat too. The authorities want to arrest you and send you to the gallows for making the stuff, whereas your customers want to shiv you in the back and rob your corpse blind because that’s the type of people they are.
As for good poisons, as you mentioned giant wasp poison is really good, versus slow monsters, like dragons for instance. Though, it'll be tough to pull off.
Other good cheap-ish poisons are
Blue whinnis- sleep time
Drow poison- sleep time
Dragon bile- really nasty because it just happens, there is no save for cure. Also con damage is awesome.
Giant wasp-for the slow creatures
Wound weal- prevent the, from healing, and give penalties to their healing check. Pretty awesome with arrows. Cheap and very effective. Thistle arrow + wound weal.
Spellscorch- it's a new poison from the advanced race guide. It's from duergar's, and it's an anti caster type poison. Making the poisoned caster make a concentration check every round just to cast. Add this in with an ally who readies an action to attack the spell caster when the try to cast. And your looking a multiple concentration checks. Very nice?
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Certain poisons are cheaper than others and serve a different purpose when used in bundles. Poisons work best
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Considering that the poisons you’re making would be considered both illegal and deeply immoral in most societies, I think you might run into problems when it comes to getting raw materials and selling your wares. It’s something of a double whammy threat too. The authorities want to arrest you and send you to the gallows for making the stuff, whereas your customers want to shiv you in the back and rob your corpse blind because that’s the type of people they are.The rules never imply any problem with seeling normal loot. And poisons are just normal loot.
It never imply's the opposite either i.e the GM can make it as easy or difficult as he likes
Last post got cut off from edit....
Essentially I was gonna write, that poisons are typically better for combat not for selling unless you go big. If you don't, then make sure not to flood the market and piss people off. Poisons are better with arrows and darts, in multiples to increase the DC check.
Anyone in your party who follows a deity of the hunt or the like, or something similar, will appreciate the poisons for their hunting escapades as they might like to call your adventuring.
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Btw, death blade poison is awesome as well. Con damage, 2 saves. Not terrible DC.
And take a look at the nagaji poison they make and the vishkanyas, and their poison. I think t might be better than the grippli's.
Don't try to make money with your character by crafting, a GM will simply reduce the time-scale of the adventure to fix that.
Therefore i suggested seeling just to make up for material costs. Many GMs are going to accept that, as it does not drastically unbalance anything.
Don't forget there's no rule that says people have to buy your wares, GM can say they can't afford it or don't want it.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipment---final/#TOC-Selling-Treasure
"In general, a character can sell something for half its listed price, including weapons, armor, gear, and magic items. This also includes character-created items."
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/settlements
"A settlement's purchase limit is the most money a shop in the settlement can spend to purchase any single item from the PCs. If the PCs wish to sell an item worth more than a settlement's purchase limit, they'll either need to settle for a lower price, travel to A larger city, or (with the GM's permission) search for a specific buyer in the city with deeper pockets. A settlement's type sets its purchase limit."
"Type Modifiers Qualitites Danger Base Limit Purchase Limit Spellcasting
Thorp –4 1 –10 50 gp 500 gp 1st
"So any thorp can buy at least a few doses of giang wasp venom. And "In general" means "Unless GM has good reason to rule otherwise", which i cannot see by seeling some poison to exactly replace material costs.
And that is not unbalanced can be seen from gripply alchimist:
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/races/other-races/uncommon-races/arg-grippliThey get for equivalent of about 2 feats up to 6 daily uses of a poison with scaling DC without any time or material investment. I do not see anything wrong about gaining 5-10 non-scaling poisons per week for a 4 feat investment. (Its just a bit stupid if the only useful poison use would be for a sepcific class and uncommon race combination. Though that grippli ability is not bad, the scaling DC will allow the poison to...
Poisons in general don't work all that well, regardless of the route you try and take you need GM cooperation or its a massively uphill battle.
The only poisons that are really useful in game are one built into classes and abilities that are free and scale.
If you want to use poison that's fine but I've always considered it more thematic than functional, hell your restricted to using classes that give you poison use just to avoid poisoning yourself !
Black finger paste helps with not poisoning yourself if you pre-poison.
Black finger paste helps with not poisoning yourself if you pre-poison.
that's one thing that's unclear about poisons and that's pre-poisoning weapons e.g. pre-poisoning a quiver of arrows ?
Poisons in general don't work all that well, regardless of the route you try and take you need GM cooperation or its a massively uphill battle.
The point i am claiming here, is that according to these rules, GMs cooperation is not needed, he is just required to skip any willful obstruction.
Per rules, the master alchimist feat, the creation rules and the rules about seling loot allow to create and sell so many poisons (at least if in decent sized community) that one can sell 2/3 of them to cover the raw material costs and still end up with a decent number of doses.
The only implicit rules against it are "Do not allow the players infinite amounts of wealth." and "Do not allow exploitation that lead to imbalance." and they do not seem to apply. (If one avoids making money as described in the opening post.)
So lets assume that's all fine
based off what has been said by others what poisons are you now looking at ? and at what levels ?
As a GM, I'd be happy to let a player make poisons and sell them for enough profit to cover his own poison use. I would stop short of allowing them to actually make a cash profit except in very particular, campaign appropriate, situations. The PC is, after all, investing multiple feats, skills, and abilities into poison use and production.
Also, I would make sure that the PC got involved with the types of seedy characters who were interested in buying poison, and perhaps even get tangled up with the authorities. There are a lot of story reasons why having some contacts on the "darker" side of society can be interesting!
And dragon bile starting at around level 14, creating about 2 for free per week of work (assuming 22+ int).
Don't forget other poisons as well. Those two besides drow are the most common ones, but again there are dozens. The better ones are typically :
Blue whinnis
Drow poison
Dragon bile
Giant wasp-
Wound weal- prevent them from healing, and gives penalties to their healing check. Thistle arrow + wound weal.
Spellscorch- it's a new poison from the advanced race guide. It's from duergar's, and it's an anti-caster type poison.
Deathblade
If you want to get the most out of poisons, you'll want the poison conversion discovery. I don't like using poison so I haven't put much thought into it for good conversions, but turning Drow Poison into an inhaled poison you throw with a flask sounds pretty darned awesome. (Poison conversion lists no time or price to do it; I'd either assume it's free and minimal time or costs 1/5 market price (as if "repairing" an item) and the time it takes to do that to convert a poison from one type to another; or if you are just directly making it into the different type from scratch, you do so for same gp and time it normally would be. Talk to your DM.)
If you want to keep poison use from bankrupting you, you definitely must get the Sticky Poison discovery, to get 3+ uses out of every injury-based poison you coat your weapons with.
Due to how it works out economically large scale and for you, it's better to make the more cheaper poisons more often and have the profit be marginally higher, than when selling a pricey poison for the similar markup or even a parallel markup increase.. It's because of the production rate that the smaller markup takes the lead. Also from a roleplaying point of view, it depends really, but if allowed it might be better to sell the pricier poison if you can get them out at a rate that is close enough to how you wold get the cheaper ones.
From a roleplaying point of view, it would be better to sell fewer poisons in a city than a whole bunch, even if it is 2/3 your stock. It really just depends on certain factors, as mentioned.
If you want to get the most out of poisons, you'll want the poison conversion discovery. I don't like using poison so I haven't put much thought into it for good conversions, but turning Drow Poison into an inhaled poison you throw with a flask sounds pretty darned awesome. (Poison conversion lists no time or price to do it; I'd either assume it's free and minimal time or costs 1/5 market price (as if "repairing" an item) and the time it takes to do that to convert a poison from one type to another; or if you are just directly making it into the different type from scratch, you do so for same gp and time it normally would be. Talk to your DM.)
Poison conversion takes 1 minute and an alchemy lab, no cost.
One poison I really like is Purple Worm Poison, ridiculous DC, relatively low cost, and takes 2 consecutive saves to cure. If you concentrate beforehand you're looking at a DC 26 (27 with a character trait) dealing 1d3 STR for 9 rounds. People overlook STR damage but it has a lot of benefits;
1: they hit less often/ less hard
2: encumbrance as carry weight goes down slows movement
3: take them to 0 and they are unconscious and helpless and either dead from coup de gras or can be tied up for questioning later
and in my experience 18 points of STR damage (on average) will cripple/kill anyone
I've got an human Alchemist who can craft 5 vials in just 2 days (average) @ LVL 6
Convert it to inhalant and aim for a square (AC 5) and you could feasibly take out 4 closely grouped (10 ft square) guys with 1 vial
I have to agree with Phasics (if I understand what he's saying): You probably shouldn't count on having constant access to the maniacs that have 1200gp and are looking to blow it on Giant Wasp poison of all things.
If you were selling commodity items like...chickens, then there would no doubt be ample demand.
