I'm playing a Ninja for our upcoming campaign and really want to make the best out of Poison use. There are some issues however.
a) Poison seems to be quite expensive. At least the better ones. While I understand why, it's somewhat boring. No way could I afford any of them for quite a long while. How have you used poisons on lower levels?
One piece of advice I got on an unrelated topic was to multiclass into Sorcerer at 2nd level and take Greensting Scorpion as a familiar so that I'd have "unlimited" access to poison. Any other ideas?
b) Did I understand correctly that Poison use only helps my character not to poison himself when he applies the poison to a weapon but on a Natural 1 on d20 he will still suffer the effects of it? Wow, lot of poison on that sentence.
c) On a lighter note: because I have the Toothy alternate race trait could I apply poison to my teeth? Then bite into the enemy and kill him! Them biting teeth are outside the characters mouth anyway so NO WAY could I accidentally poison my self, because, well, POISON USE CLASS SKILL!!!
Also, here's my character for the record:
Ez-Raen
Half-Orc Ninja 1
LN Medium Humanoid
Init +4 ; Senses Perception +4, Dark vision 60 ft
==DEFENSE==
AC 14, touch 12, flat-footed 12 (+2 armor)
Hp 9 (1d8+1)
Fort +1, Ref +4, Will +1
Armor Leather
==OFFENSE==
Spd 30 ft
Melee Katana +3 (1d8+5) 18-20/x2
Ranged Shortbow +2 (1d6) 20/x3
Ranged Shuriken +2 (1d2+3) 20/x2
Special Attacks Sneak Attack [1d6]
==STATISTICS==
Str 17, Dex 14, Con 12, Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 14
BAB +0, CMB +3, CMD +15
Feats Improved Initiative
Skills Acrobatics +6, Bluff +6, Craft: Cooking +4, Diplomacy +6, Disguise +6, Knowledge: Local +4, Perception +4, Stealth +6
SQ Poison Use
Traits Reactionary (+2 init), Indomitable Faith (+1 to Will saves),
Toothy (1d4+Str natural bite attack)
EDIT: Grammar
I too, play a Ninja, who was looking into poisons.
I found a few challenges.
1. They are expensive, even with an alchemist party-member who can make them for me at 1/2 price. (Maybe your GM would let you take Craft-Alchemy or Craft-Poison as a mundane craft check)
2. It takes a lonnnng time for my alchemist friend to make poisons for me. Several weeks for some. As opposed to making me a belt of dexterity which takes him 2-3 days.
3. Its a standard round to apply it to your weapon. So you give up that flat-footed sneak attack opportunity, to hang back and apply it for a turn. I didn't see any special gear, like special sheathes that would let you pre-apply it. There is a quick-apply feat, but a feat is a high price to pay. Meanwhile my wizard buddy has put all the mooks down with a sleep spell already.
4. Very few of them do what I'm interested in-- knocking the enemy unconscious, or maybe confusing the enemy spellcaster. Everything else is damage to Str or Con. Well, that's a painfully slow way to kill somebody; knock their Str down to zero and then coup de grace them, or make them weak so they don't hurt your buddy the Barbarian too much before HE kills him.
5. The DC's for the poisonee to make their save is ridiculously low. Only a handful of the DC's are higher than 15. Remember that poison it took you lots of gold, weeks of downtime to make, and a whole round to apply to your weapon (or your teeth)? Yah, well most of the time it fails.
There is the possibility of going the smoke bomb route. That sounds very Ninja-y, doesn't it? But its 3 Ninja tricks to get to poison bomb. At least that can affect more than one enemy at a time.
But in the end, my Ninja didn't think it was worth it. She invested strongly in UMD and bought a wand of sleep for 750 gp, instead.
I would love to know if anyone else came up with better solutions
I'm playing a Ninja for our upcoming campaign and really want to make the best out of Poison use. There are some issues however.
a) Poison seems to be quite expensive. At least the better ones. While I understand why, it's somewhat boring. No way could I afford any of them for quite a long while. How have you used poisons on lower levels?
One piece of advice I got on an unrelated topic was to multiclass into Sorcerer at 2nd level and take Greensting Scorpion as a familiar so that I'd have "unlimited" access to poison. Any other ideas?
You dont have to multiclass to do that. You can take the eldritch heritage feat from ultimate magic. Just talk to you GM first about 'harvesting' the posion, and how he wants to handle that, because there arent clear rules for how to get poisons from creatures and use them as poisons.
b) Did I understand correctly that Poison use only helps my character not to poison himself when he applies the poison to a weapon but on a Natural 1 on d20 he will still suffer the effects of it? Wow, lot of poison on that sentence.
Yes
c) On a lighter note: because I have the Toothy alternate race trait could I apply poison to my teeth? Then bite into the enemy and kill him! Them biting teeth are outside the characters mouth anyway so NO WAY could I accidentally poison my self, because, well, POISON USE CLASS SKILL!!!
I wouldnt let that fly in my game, its one thing not to poison yourself when apply a poison to a weapon, its another to put it in your mouth and try not to get poisoned. This is another case where i'd check with your gm
I too, play a Ninja, who was looking into poisons.
I found a few challenges.
1. They are expensive, even with an alchemist party-member who can make them for me at 1/2 price. (Maybe your GM would let you take Craft-Alchemy or Craft-Poison as a mundane craft check)
The gm doesnt have to allow that, you can just do it. Crafting poison is a mundane action and any character can do it.
"Poisons can be made using Craft (alchemy). The DC to make a poison is equal to its Fortitude save DC. Rolling a natural 1 on a Craft skill check while making a poison exposes the crafter to the poison. Crafters with the poison use class feature do not risk poisoning themselves when using Craft to make poison."
Also, using the craft skill to make something does it at 1/3 the price not 1/2. See step 3 in the craft skill discription:
"1. Find the item's price in silver pieces (1 gp = 10 sp).
2. Find the item's DC from Table: Craft Skills.
3. Pay 1/3 of the item's price for the raw material cost."
2. It takes a lonnnng time for my alchemist friend to make poisons for me. Several weeks for some. As opposed to making me a belt of dexterity which takes him 2-3 days.
Assuming the alchemist has a high craft skill, he can increase the dc he is attempting to speed up the process.
"Special: You may voluntarily add +10 to the indicated DC to craft an item. This allows you to create the item more quickly (since you'll be multiplying this higher DC by your Craft check result to determine progress). You must decide whether to increase the DC before you make each weekly or daily check."
You can also take 10 and aid him in his craft checks (assuming you also train in craft alchemy) in order to speed things up.
3. Its a standard round to apply it to your weapon. So you give up that flat-footed sneak attack opportunity, to hang back and apply it for a turn. I didn't see any special gear, like special sheathes that would let you pre-apply it. There is a quick-apply feat, but a feat is a high price to pay. Meanwhile my wizard buddy has put all the mooks down with a sleep spell already.
First, there is the rogue talent swift poisoner from the apg, if you dont want to use a feat, but you dont need anything special to pre-apply poisons. You can apply a dose to weapon ahead of time and it isnt lost until you use it. Since you have poison use you wont have to worry about poisoning yourself.
4. Very few of them do what I'm interested in-- knocking the enemy unconscious, or maybe confusing the enemy spellcaster. Everything else is damage to Str or Con. Well, that's a painfully slow way to kill somebody; knock their Str down to zero and then coup de grace them, or make them weak so they don't hurt your buddy the Barbarian too much before HE kills him.
I think you drastically underestimate how lethal poisons are. Remember that most injury poisons affect the target EVERY ROUND. That is a great way to bring down or at least heavily debuff a tough foe. Its not useful on mooks, but on strong enemies its great. Also, posions that require 2 saves are especially useful in this case.
5. The DC's for the poisonee to make their save is ridiculously low. Only a handful of the DC's are higher than 15. Remember that poison it took you lots of gold, weeks of downtime to make, and a whole round to apply to your weapon (or your teeth)? Yah, well most of the time it fails.
Get your alchemist buddy to take the concentrate poison and sticky poison discoveries if you can (or just talk to your dm about finding an npc alchemist with such a thing) in order to improve the poisons potential.
There is the possibility of going the smoke bomb route. That sounds very Ninja-y, doesn't it? But its 3 Ninja tricks to get to poison bomb. At least that can affect more than one enemy at a time.
But in the end, my Ninja didn't think it was worth it. She invested strongly in UMD and bought a wand of sleep for 750 gp, instead.
I would love to know if anyone else came up with better solutions
Remember that sleep wand will always be DC 11. You are probably better off with poisons at that rate.
One more thing, there is also the lasting poison rogue talent which allows a poison to work for 2 successful attacks instead of one, that and swift poison are pretty good options for a ninja wanting to focus on poison.
@Kolokotroni
Yes, that Eldritch Heritage trick could work. Also I'd have a killer Initiative modifier, +12 at 3rd level! Although the scorpion's poison only has a DC of 10. But if I get the Craft alchemy skill then that wouldn't be a problem. Could make almost any poisons I like. Don't know if I want invest too heavily on this in terms of feats, cause I'm still not sure what style of play I choose. It's been a very long time since I've played any character longer than two sessions so I don't want to lock down everything yet.