As a cleric (who does not have access to Knowledge - Nature) what skills, items, etc. would enable a cleric to justify milking the poison glands of animals/creatures/monsters for use on one's own weapons or the weapons of the party?
I am extremely enamored with the idea of taking poisons from the creatures we fight and preserving them to use on enemies. I have alchemy as a craft... which might help with handling/preserving the poisons, but is a spurious explanation at best as far as knowing where the poison glands/repositories were on a creature as well as how one safely extracts them.
Any thoughts or directions y'all can point to?
Your deity's opinions on using poisons is probably what I'd say. If the deity is okay, go for it.
As a cleric (who does not have access to Knowledge - Nature) what skills, items, etc. would enable a cleric to justify milking the poison glands of animals/creatures/monsters for use on one's own weapons or the weapons of the party?
I am extremely enamored with the idea of taking poisons from the creatures we fight and preserving them to use on enemies. I have alchemy as a craft... which might help with handling/preserving the poisons, but is a spurious explanation at best as far as knowing where the poison glands/repositories were on a creature as well as how one safely extracts them.
Any thoughts or directions y'all can point to?
Please tell me you're an Evil alignment Cleric, because I sure as heck don't know a Cleric who would resort to using poisons; isn't that against their code or something?
Anyway...Alchemy involves the creation of potions and poisons (and perhaps their antidotes), and would require a successful Craft check based on the poison extracted, using your skill bonus as a modifier check.
As to how they are extracted, this is a fantasy world. If you're looking for a real-life explanation, it'll be quite far-fetched compared to the beasts of Pathfinder.
This is a 3rd party page, and I wouldn't recommend it for official playing, but as far as an explanation of anything, a read-through wouldn't hurt any.
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Well, as far as I know the rules don't support what you want to do. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to do it, it's a very creative idea.
How I would handle it in my game is first you would need to make a knowledge check on the monster.
I'd probably have you roll a heal check to identify the poison gland
I'd probably have you roll a Handle Animal or Survival check to extract the poison, probably would have you be accidentally poisoned if you failed the DC by enough (Would probably give poison use classes immunity from this or a buff to the check)
Then once you have the poison, I would probably have it decay quickly unless you had a Craft alchemy check to preserve it somehow.
Please tell me you're an Evil alignment Cleric, because I sure as heck don't know a Cleric who would resort to using poisons; isn't that against their code or something?
Uhm, I don't believe clerics have a code, beyond following their deity and the teachings thereof. Unless the deity is specifically against poisons, I'd say the OP is good to go in that department. Unconventional clerics are a good thing.
As for knowledge of extraction, I'd say Knowledge (nature) is an obvious it; some sort of Profession skill might work, and I'd say even Survival and Heal could be helpful.
Keep in mind you can put ranks in non-class skills, they're just not as effective.
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Let me get this straight. You don't have Knowledge: Nature at all? How would you even know where to begin? Sure, you might know that snakes are poisonous... but you wouldn't have clue one about where to look for a poison sac. Let alone how to remove one without ruining the sac.
Alchemy would help you identify the poison in question, and possibly suggest helpful alchemical mixtures to use as antidotes (though that sort of thing would be a Heal check, really... I'd give it to you at a higher DC, but I'm nice). It would also let you craft alchemical items. Natural poisons such as you're thinking of, are not alchemical items. There are some alchemical poisons, though.
Also, Knowledge: Nature would only work with creatures of the natural world. For the really poisonous ones -- the creepy-crawlies that live underground -- you need Knowledge: Dungeoneering.
There is another problem, though I don't know if it's represented in Pathfinder or not. Injected venoms usually don't make good blade toxins. Blade toxins have to be thick, almost like jelly, so the poison doesn't run off the blade in the first few moments after the poison has been applied. You'd have to distill whatever venom you get, in order to get it to that state -- but here, your Craft: Alchemy skill would help (distillation is a fairly routine procedure). Trouble is, distillation reduces the amount of poison you obtain -- so in order to get enough poison to coat one weapon, you'd have to obtain poison sacs from three or four creatures, at least.
You're probably better off just buying poisons directly from poisonmakers. At least there you don't have to deal with the risk of getting poisoned collecting the glands. (Oh, by the way, if you haven't figured it out, if a creature bites you and injects poison -- don't bother collecting from that creature; the sac will be empty.)
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Well, think about it this way:
You are going to have to do the following things
1. Identify that the monster is poisonous
2. Identify the part of the monster that stores/secrete the poison
3. Harvest the poison
4. Figure out what the poison is
5. Apply/store the poison
Step one is going to require a knowledge check. That's pretty cut and dry.
Step two I would say is going to require some sort of anatomical knowledge. That in my opinion would either translate to a Heal Check or a much more difficult knowledge check.
Step three is going to require either some ability to safety extract the poison from the corpse of the monster or in certain cases, wrangle a living monster to milk it's poison. For the former, I would suggest probably something like a difficult survival, maybe something like Profession skinning or something like that. Anything that would justify poking around in the innards of a critter. The latter is going to be a Handle Animal. A hard one.
This is the 1st opportunity to accidentally poison yourself, since you will be in contact with the poison.
Step 4 is going to require a craft alchemy check or a much more difficult knowledge check of the monster.
Step 5 is going to require a craft alchemy and you're probably going to also risk poisoning yourself here as well.
As to how much poison you have to collect and how much you get from a creature, that's up to GM discretion.
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I would just like to ask:
Have any of you dealt with poisons?
In my experience here is how I would translate the method:
1) Knowledge check based on creature.
2) Heal Skill to extract the poison (best left to someone with poison use or immunity)
3) Craft(Alchemy) to get it to the consistency you need.
The consistency depends on the type of method the poison needs. If memory serves most poisons used by monsters are injury based which means it is fairly easy to make usable. Most poisons don't require much to preserve. Look at this for the difficulty of the poisons: Snake poison is the easiest to obtain, but the hardest to preserve. Scorpions are the hardest to obtain, but the easiest to preserve.
If you have a well built party you should have someone with each of these skills. The one you have to worry about is the Heal skill being on someone with poison use/immunity. & getting a poison to the right consistency is as simple as adding a small amount of powder to it.
And as a Cleric you might want to check your Deities tenants to see if they dislike poison. And DO NOT ask the Paladin for help. It most likely will lead to conflict.
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Have any of you dealt with poisons?
Well, I'm not a trained toxicologist, but actually, I've worked with poisons in the past, yes. And I don't mean just pesticides. I mean nerve gas.
Assuming that the OP's character's deity and party are fine with it (pesky paladins always ruin the fun), here's the procedure I'd use:
1. Identify the creature involved and the poison it secretes -- and where that poison is stored in the body. First one, moderate Knowledge (Nature, Dungeoneering, Religion, Arcana or Planes) check. Second, difficult Knowledge (same) check or very difficult Heal check.
Failure: That thing is poisonous? Get outta here!
2. Assuming the creature has not used its poison, retrieval: moderate Profession (Naturalist, Veterinarian, Zookeeper or Snake Charmer or some such) check followed by a moderate Handle Animal check or difficult Heal check followed by a difficult Dexterity check. Increase all DCs by one step if milking is performed rather than sac extraction.
Failure by 5: You have poisoned yourself. Save vs. Poisons or take poison damage. Extracted venom lost.
Failure by 10: As above, but -2 to the save.
3. Distillation, converting it to a usable form: moderate Craft(Alchemy) check or difficult Heal check followed by difficult Knowledge (Nature, Dungeoneering, Religion, Arcana or Planes) check.
Failure by 5: You have poisoned yourself (and anyone else in the lab with you, butterfingers!). Save vs. Poisons or take poison damage. Poison batch lost.
Failure by 10: As above, but -2 to the save.
You only need to perform step 1 once per creature type, but step 2 must be performed per individual creature. Step 3 is done once, to make a batch of poison. As a general rule of thumb, I'd say you could process a number of samples (either sacs or milked doses) equal to your ranks in Craft: Alchemy (or half your ranks in Heal). It takes 2 doses to make 1 dose of blade venom, 3 doses to make 1 dose of ingested poison, and 5 doses to turn it into poison gas.
The actual DCs would be up to the GM to set, but at a minimum I'd start a moderate DC at the save DC for the poison, +1 for each hit die of the creature past 1. Difficult DCs are 5 past that; Very difficult, 5 past that.
@John-Andre: OK then... though I was referring more to the poison from animals and such... not so much chemical warfare toxins.
Your system is better for a living creature that has been brought under control...
Mine is based on extracting poison from a dead creature. Which I believe is what was being asked. A far easier task.
What I'd say? Knowledge (Nature) is the main thing that is needed for actually extracting poisons from plants and creatures, since I can't really see the modern profession of poison extracting really fitting for that. Craft (Poison) or even Craft (Alchemy) are for actually preserving harvested toxins. Also, this thread gave me the idea that my Blight Druid Changeling (Annis heritage) will probably use a combination of disease by the miasma and spells that she has with poison that she adds to her claws that she gets from various animals and vermin.
Snake venom can be maintained without cold temperatures, but it tends to quickly congeal. Unless proper chemicals are added.
Spiders are usually milked via fine tools such as Tweezers and Droppers. Both of which have existed since medieval times.
Scorpions are the same way but surprisingly harder to get them to strike with the poison ready to inject. They are surprisingly docile in most cases. Only when threatened will they actually prepare to attack. Though if Pathfinder was based on the real world Giant Scorpion poison would hardly do anything were as a diminuative scorpion could kill a 100 hp fighter in a single round.
Knowledge should be used to find the glands.
Also a Druid with a viper Animal Companion could really gain a virtually unlimited supply of snake venom.
Though so can a certain race...
what race might that be? (we're all humans and a dwarf, so the interest is purely academic at this point)
Seems like there are wildly disparate views as to the relative difficulties
My goddess is desna, which is notably described as having very little in the way of proscribed activities. I do not believe by any stretch my diety would disapprove.
I am aware I can take Knowledge Nature cross-class, but as a cleric I have precious little in the way of "spare" skill ranks, so the number of ranks I would have to spend (especially in light of how difficult some suppose it is) seems far too costly regarding knowledge to be viable.
I also said "no access to knowledge Nature" to mean nobody else in the party has it as a class skill either. It is good to know Alchemy and Heal skills are potentially useful... as is dungeoneering for certain types of critters (as the fighter will have that.)
It just seems to me a waste not to try to utilize monster poisons, especially when they tend to be so much worse than alchemical poisons, and used sparingly -- could help in a variety of situations.
Thanks for all the help... this should give me a start, at least.
Desna is Neutral Good, which means she would probably frown on such evil activity as use of lethal poisons. (Sedative or soporific poisons, on the other hand, would probably be okay.)
First of all, remember that my experience with Pathfinder is not extensive, and I tend to describe things in 3.5e terms. (Actually I'd prefer to describe them in 4e terms, but then poisons become kinda wonky. What action are they to apply? Are they an at-will or an encounter power? What's their rarity? Not topics to be answered on the fly.)
Now, my goal in my methodology was to give options for each method -- and penalties for failure -- so you didn't have to rely on just one skill to do each step in the process. Sure, obtaining a snake's venom is probably a Knowledge (Nature) check, then a Handle Animal check, then a Heal check, then a Craft (Poison or Alchemy) check, but I wanted to throw in a Profession check to validify the existence of that skill. And then what are the DCs? In my game, were this to become a performable task, I'd want this to be difficult enough to validify the existence of specialized sellers of poison, but easy enough that the PCs could, in fact, do this, albeit with some risk of self-poisoning.
In fact, in the Survival campaign I'm thinking of running, this would probably become an excellent way for the party to overcome the disadvantages in an encounter due to poor equipment, effects of exposure and exhaustion.
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*Facepalm* There is NOTHING inherently evil about the use of poison. That stupid ruling should be dead and gone by now.
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*Facepalm* There is NOTHING inherently evil about the use of poison. That stupid ruling should be dead and gone by now.
Poisoning inflicts additional suffering on an opponent beyond merely attacking them and is often applied in deceitful or underhanded way. It's most certainly NOT a good act.
The race is I believe called Vishkanya. They are in Bestiary 3 and the ARG.
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I look forward to the cleric with no knowledge nature trying to figure out how to milk a raccoon for their insanity venom.
Poisoning inflicts additional suffering on an opponent beyond merely attacking them and is often applied in deceitful or underhanded way. It's most certainly NOT a good act.
Poisons can also dull the senses making the victim experience less suffering. Some poisons work quick enough to be less painful than some combat alternatives.
Daggers are often used in deceitful and underhanded ways as well but the use of a dagger is not evil. They might be evil on a case by case basis but not as a group. Especially since what is a poison in one dose might be a medicine or anesthetic with different dose.
*Facepalm* There is NOTHING inherently evil about the use of poison. That stupid ruling should be dead and gone by now.Poisoning inflicts additional suffering on an opponent beyond merely attacking them and is often applied in deceitful or underhanded way. It's most certainly NOT a good act.
Burning someone with fire (or frying them with electricity) inflicts additional suffering on an opponent merely beyond attacking them. Same goes for any frostbite inflicted by cold damage and the melting feeling (not sure how to explain) from acid damage, not to mention internal bleeding probably caused by bludgeoning weapons or the bleeding wounds from slashing or stabbing weapons. Oh, and let's not forget the Tetanus you might get if you use a rusty one on a foe.
Let's declare all those things evil as well, especially spells. After all, they're always flung from afar by frail, bookish cowards wearing frilly gowns and dresses.
Also, let's make all pragmatic (or smart) decisions evil, because apparently using "deceitful or underhanded" tactics is something a good guy would never do. So there are no good-aligned Rogues, for one. And when it comes to a good guy in a fight, he'd let the bad guys just aim under the belt while trying to preach to them about goodness and virtue, or try striking them from a position where the guy would obviously block or dodge the attack instead of fighting effectively, because it's the "good" thing to do.
NO! BAD TOUCH!Thanks...now I have an image in my mind of a Vishkanya milking them-self.Now imagining Robert deNiro from Meet The Parents as a Vishkanya.
Wow... no comment... absolutely no comment...
Fire is holy.
So is Electricity. And Acid. And Cold/Ice.
Fire is holy as hell
Tactics and practicality are not evil.
If an enemy has fortified itself and can only be defeated via poisoning of food and water supplies, then you've done more good than bad, sparing your soldiers from casualties. Then again, I refuse to see good and evil in real life. Those things belong in fantasy worlds, not in the real world where there is the acceptable and the unacceptable, morals and ethics and other such things that while do exist in D&D, do not function the same way as they do in it.
Really it depends on one's code of honor. A Paladin won't touch poison. But a LG Fighter might.
As stated, Desna is Chaotic good -- and in the Faiths of Purity supplement and elsewhere it is related in numerous places that breadth of experience is advocated, traveling and pursuing personal interests, and a marked absence of proscribed behaviors typical of other faiths. Where Densa does proscribe behavior it's indicated as not sowing despair through divination, and where ill fortune is discovered for the innocent one should do their best to adjust those fortunes.
My cleric is profoundly interested in extracting poisons, and using them against monsters that prey on the innocent (Desna advocates killing monsters and those that prey on innocents and the faithful) As such, I've negotiated the moral quandry associated with the practice. It's just a question of practicalities.
I could easily argue smacking somebody in the head with a morningstar inflicts additional suffering than merely attacking them -- One could argue killing a foe more quickly with poison is far more humane than having to work up a sweat beating them to death for a full minute. many animal poisons are paralytic in nature and would cause the creature to lose consciousness and suffocate instead of requiring me to break all of their bones with blunt force trauma. From that perspective I am not so sure the use of poison universally prolongs or increases suffering. Lethal injection is considered in these modern times the most humane means of execution, even!
I'm sure there might be poisons that are as painful as weapon blows, less so, and more so. If using a Linnorm poison that fills a foes veins with burning acidic venom is obviously putting foes in exquisite levels of pain and agony, I would of course be prompted to only use that venom against foes or in situations that merited/dictated it's use. (against a super-evil monster or a sitiuation where innocents or allies might otherwise likely die.)
Besides the multiple rolls approach using different skills, I would allow an appropriate profession skill to get the job done with a single roll, giving X doses of raw poison, usable in the same way the creature used (usually injury). Of course, I can't figure out exactly which professions would be appropriate here. Is there a Profession (Monster Butcher)?
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Just throwing this in the poison morality debate:
There are good-aligned beings that naturally have poison attacks. Pseudodragons are an example of a relatively benign form of it. Couatl poison is described in their Mysthological Monsters article as making their victims insensate, which is pretty much a mercy considering that when faced with evil creatures that they can't sway they tend to eat them alive. :O
I suggest using your Craft(Alchemy) checks as to make money. After all extractions and distillations are done, you'll end up with that gp value of poison. Keep milking/mixing/matching until you have enough value for a full dose.
Basically you fluff it as harvesting poisonous glands and plants every chance you get, in return for making these weekly craft checks while in the field instead of needing downtime.
Your whatever poison will be your unique mixture, happening to have the same statistics of whatever dose you apply your virtual craft money towards.
I look forward to the cleric with no knowledge nature trying to figure out how to milk a raccoon for their insanity venom.
LOL, love this idea.
Greg
* I'd expect a character that makes a character theme out of this to have :
- ranks in craft alchemy, to handle the raw materials and transform / preserve them in suitable fashion
- ranks in heal, a character that thematically harvests parts of living creatures should have some basic knowledge of anatomy beyond the obvious, probably not alot of ranks are needed, I'd probably just require a DC 15 heal check, but wouldnt allow taking 10 if you have no ranks in it.
- ranks in knowledge skills appropriate for the creature to be harvested for whatever reason a basic knowledge check concerning the creature seems appropriate (15 +CR).
* While Desna might not be directly opposed poison use is at best of dubious morality, I'd say if your character is into such things it is better to pick a deity that is more suitable to your pragmatic way of thinking or at least provide an idea how this fits into your religion, religion is a way of life afterall and should largely define your characters attitude to many things.
* Many uses or contemplated uses of poison are dishonorable or borderline evil, not all people that use poion on a regular basis will be evil but few will be good aligned, so in part it is 'evil' by association. Fellow clerics of Desna might frown upon your use of poison since it is an assassin's tool and it rubs close to the methods of certain demon lords and/or evil deity's followers.
* At best I would allow you to ignore half the cost for a limited number of doses and reduce the amount of time required to craft it by by half, poison is expensive and even though it doesn't make sense completely slightly artificial ways to keep poison use a bit rare is probably a good thing. A feat of some sort might be required to make it more usable quickly, 1d4-1 doses seems ok per harvesting for raw materials.
* Many uses or contemplated uses of poison are dishonorable or borderline evil, not all people that use posion on a regular basis will be evil but few will be good aligned, so in part it is 'evil' by association. Fellow clerics of Desna might frown upon your use of poison since it is an assassin's tool and it rubs close to the methods of certain demon lords and/or evil deity's followers.
Please, do elaborate on this.
And what does honor have to do with anything? Even a Lawful Evil guy can be honorable!!
* Many uses or contemplated uses of poison are dishonorable or borderline evil, not all people that use posion on a regular basis will be evil but few will be good aligned, so in part it is 'evil' by association. Fellow clerics of Desna might frown upon your use of poison since it is an assassin's tool and it rubs close to the methods of certain demon lords and/or evil deity's followers.Please, do elaborate on this.
And what does honor have to do with anything? Even a Lawful Evil guy can be honorable!!
You are asking me to explain what could possibly be dishonorable about using poison and at the same time saying it has nothing to do with anything. I completely agree that lawful evil people can be honorable or can have other 'good' qualities they can be great with kids too being evil doesn't mean all you can possibly do has to be an evil act.
Using poison implies a certain level of ruthless efficiency and/or focus on trickery and deceit which rubs close to either chaotic or evil entities, you do not have to be evil to use poison but these are common users of poison.
A cleric is somewhat of a poster boy/girl of the faith people would think it dubious if a cleric would resort to the favored weapons of those he opposes.
It's called irony. And being efficient should never be equated with evil, lest we all play idiots as heroes.
It's called irony. And being efficient should never be equated with evil, lest we all play idiots as heroes.
Ruthless efficiency is equated with evil as the game is set up the less optimal choices tend to be the 'good' ones, sacrifice is good, selfishness is evil yadayada.. wether the alignment system works is something else entirely.
I would counter that the game would become much more boring if we all play 'efficient' heroes, the problem isn't so much that people play idiots rather that people are unwilling to allow RP to affect their 'effectiveness'.
If poison is an optimal choice all the 'non-idiots' will be running around with poison in short order, irony indeed.
Did I miss some rule somewhere that stated that the use of poison is an evil act?
I have a similar character in my Kingmaker campaign; he's a first-level sorcerer frustrated with not being able to do any significant damage, and he's looking for an 'edge', so he wants to start harvesting and crafting poisons.
I was *very* frustrated as a GM getting into an argument with him that Craft: Alchemy did NOT cover harvesting poison from any creature the party happened to kill.
As a GM, I like the proposal above:
(1) A Knowledge: XXX check to identify the creature. I would allow this check to be made by a different party member. "Hey, Joe Bob, that thar's a mendacious widget! Their spit's right awful poison-like!"
(2) A Heal check to identify the poison glands. This one's harder for me. For a dead creature, you're going to have to cut it open to get at the glands. I'm a Ph.D. with a small amount of knowledge of snake and spider anatomy, but I think if someone presented me with a 3' spider and asked me where the poison glands were, I'd say, "Der....". I've watched snakes being milked, but I wouldn't want to try it myself.
So the notion that an alchemist is going to know where to cut is just wrong. I'd make it a fairly high DC Heal check (required Knowledge + 10, anyone?) to successfully remove the glands. Fortunately, most of the time you're just going to ruin the glands, so it would take failure by 10 (or even 15) to manage to poison yourself. "Gosh, darn, Billy Bob, I know I'm cutting this thing apart to find its poison glands, but being slow and careful is SO boring!"
I like the idea of a really hard Heal check or a Craft (or Profession): Poison Harvester here, with a much easier check if you take the craft.
(3) An alchemy check to turn the venom into effective poison. Milking a cobra and then brushing cobra venom on your blade isn't going to make an effective poisonous weapon; the venom isn't concentrated enough to do more than make the wound a bit stingy-er than usual.
So I see 3 checks, with the 2nd one being the hardest, and the most likely to fail and ruin the creature.
You could, of course, cut the entire glands out and bring them to someone who knew what they were doing. I know the snake's bite is poisonous, so I cut off its head and take it to the local harvester. Little danger to me, and hopefully not all the poison leaks out while I'm carrying it around...
