Im wondering how people feel about the Pathfinder Poison rules.
we have always played that the DC of a poison stacks with each dose.
we never questioned the rule hell we never even thought about how long this stacking applies we just figured if in the course of a battle a person was poisoned 3 times the DC would go up by 1 every time he was dosed ... basically that battle.
I just read the rule which essentially states that poison only stacks if your already poisoned having failed the save before.
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This is not a rules question or even an argument. its an opinion question... Do you think this makes perfect sense or can be handled better?
I find it hard to believe that a person with a fort save of 10+ can be dosed with endless amounts of black adder poisons and would only feel a little ill every 1 in 20 times they roll a 1. even if they roll a one and get poisoned again they just have to beat the next save to restart the clock.
it seems right to assume that each dose would increase the DC so that enough doses of a poison pretty much ensures that the target will eventually suffer from it.
just wondering peoples opinion on this as I am considering setting the original plan in stone as a house rule if my players agree.
Part of the issue with poison stacking comes from the fact that unless they're already poisoned you're essentially resulting in an arbitrary window of opportunity. One that doesn't even work correctly. For example, you say "during that battle", and yet poison can occur many times outside of battle. It also creates issues since "in battle" is very ephemeral and a given battle could last less than 3 seconds to any amount greater. For example, if a PC picked up a spoon laced with Black Lotus, when do they stop being in the window of opportunity?
I'd consider - perhaps - basing it on rest periods, possibly with a Heal check or something to slow accumulation or to reduce the number of infections by 1 per success (like DC 15, with another success every 5 points over 15).
Personally, my group has been unimpressed with Pathfinder poison rules in their entirety. They lack the dread of poison in 3.x, but we like that it doesn't hit you all at once. Due to this we've hybridized poison in our PF games. We use a rather simple conversion to determine the strength of the poison, you get 1 save, and suffer damage each round. If you were bitten by a giant spider, you could take 1 strength damage per round for 6 rounds. Further doses during that time come with an increased DC and extend the duration of the poison appropriately. The Heal skill in our games provides a new chance to save against the poison, with a bonus depending on how much the Heal check beat the poison's DC (you grant the beneficiary a +2 circumstance bonus for every 5 points by which you beat the DC of the poison).
This has added a lot more interesting and respect to creatures with natural poisons and characters that use poison (on both sides of the screen). It's less "omgwtf" as it was in 3.x where dragon bile could slam you for sudden 3d6 Strength damage, but since you don't get to make saves each round to prematurely end the poison's duration, you are generally going to suffer once that saving throw has failed.
Looks like we have a duplicate thread here, and unfortunately there are replies to both threads. Since the other version (located here) is longer, I'm going to lock this one.
Ashiel, please feel free to repost your response in that thread and continue discussion there. Thanks! :-)