Neutralize Poison

[Brogue The Rogue]

Hello!

I'm wanting to rework the Neutralize Poison spell into something not completely and totally worthless, and I'm wondering if anyone on here has already done that. How do you guys handle this spell in your campaigns?

[Kayerloth]

I'm relatively unfamiliar with PF, much more familiar with 3.5 and before ...

So why do you consider Neutralize Poison to be completely and totally worthless?

[Brogue The Rogue]

Kayerloth wrote:

I'm relatively unfamiliar with PF, much more familiar with 3.5 and before ...

So why do you consider Neutralize Poison to be completely and totally worthless?

Neutralize Poison has you make a caster level check against the DC of a poison. Caster Level scales with level, but scales... differently than, say, fortitude saves. A class with a good fortitude save is actually going to have a better chance of making this DC than the cleric with his caster level check. A class with a poor fortitude save is going to have a significantly worse chance.

This is an example of *a* level where it might happen, but assume level 8, with a fighter and rogue, against, say an Osyluth, which has a DC 20 poison. The fighter has a base fortitude save of +6. Assume a +3 constitution and a +2 cloak of resistance (not at all unreasonable in either case, I'd say), and he has a +11 to the save. That's three better than the cleric's chance to make it. The rogue has a base save of +2. Assume the same cloak, but a constitution of only +1, because he enjoys dying. That's a save of +5. Significantly worse than the cleric.

So that's Fighter +11, Cleric +8, Rogue +5.

So in this situation, the cleric could cast neutralize poison on the rogue and have a slightly better chance of making the save than the rogue, using one of his only fourth level spells for the day, assuming he wasn't smart and didn't prepare something useful, like Freedom of Movement, Deathward, Airwalk, or Reach Communal Resist Energy (et cetera... the list goes on).

...Alternatively... he can cast Delay Poison (or Reach Communal Delay Poison, as is my preference), ignore the poison for the entire fight, then, afterwards, give the party antitoxins and perform the heal skill on them. Heal uses the same DC, but has your skill against the DC, rather than caster level. That means a competent cleric at level is going to have a caster level of +8 and a heal skill of around +15. Taking ten guarantees success, giving a +4 bonus to the character's check. Combine that with antitoxin and they have a +9.

So at this point, the fighter has a +20 and the rogue has a +14 compared to the neutralize poison check of +8. The only downside to this is that you may need to save multiple times, but even then you're still much more likely to find success even with the rogue's poor save than with Neutralize poison(and, hey, you could even be casting guidance on the rogue if you want ;) ).

So, yeah. I'd like a way to make this spell not suck without reverting it back to the 3.5 version.

[Weirdo]

If you're concerned that the caster level check bonus is too low, how about just giving it a bonus?

Alternatively, instead of making Neutralize Poison a separate check against the poison DC, give the character who has received Neutralize Poison a bonus equal to the caster level on any saves they make against the poison.

Or say that if the initial caster level check against the poison fails, the person receiving the spell still gets a bonus (+2, +4, half caster level, whatever) on saving throws to recover from that poison.

EDIT: I personally have found Neutralize Poison useful enough, especially to save characters with poor Fort saves, but these are ideas if you're finding it too weak.

[Kayerloth]

Yeah that is kind of underwhelming for a 4th level spell. I notice they've also changed up the wording on using the Heal skill against poisons.

In addition to Weirdo's thoughts you could add effects to the spell to make it more appealing:

Make it heal/cure/restore any (some or all) ability damage, drain or other effect even if it's instantaneous provided it was a direct effect of the poison. Or heal "x" amount if it occurred within "y" amount of time possible linking it with the caster's level. For example, add in the effect of Lesser Restoration (and/or Cure Light Wounds) provided the poisoning occurred within a 10 min/caster level and was a direct effect of the poison (or something similar).

If they fail the CL check as an alternate to Weirdo's thought of a lessened bonus have it act as a Delay Poison spell instead (+/- a greater duration such as 2 hours/level rather than 1 hour/level) to give them more time to get to or find a better solution).

Or obviously combine one or more of the suggestions until Neutralize Poison's effects seem more appropriate for your campaign.

[Brogue The Rogue]

Weirdo wrote:

EDIT: I personally have found Neutralize Poison useful enough, especially to save characters with poor Fort saves, but these are ideas if you're finding it too weak.

Being honest... if anyone has used this spell to good effect, it was because the above method of delay poison/antitoxin/heal check hadn't occurred to them... it's far superior. :(

I really like the idea of altering the spell's instantaneous effects to remove damage and status effects gained. I don't like the idea of making the subject immune to poison and having the spell last long enough so that a high-level extended character need never worry about it again (though, honestly, communal delay poison and the above method basically does that....), but I don't mind the idea of making the spell make someone immune for the rest of the combat.

What do you all think about that? The spell, when successful, removes all current status afflictions caused by poison, then makes the target immune to poison for one round per caster level?