GM question: Creating New Poisons?

[BigP4nda]

I would like to make more potent poisons, and some other poisons that branch out further than the basic ones from the UE. Some questions I have regarding this issue:

Is there any kind of formula for figuring out the price of poisons?

What is the best way to balance the poisons (besides making them ridiculously expensive)?

IF YES TO Q1, How would you include effects like unconsciousness, death, or paralysis into the price?

Also, I wasn't sure if the best place to post this question was under Advice or Suggestions/Home Brew so if this isn't the right place just let me know.

[BigP4nda]

bump

[Timebomb]

There really isn't a rhyme or reason for the pricing of poisons, very few things use artificial poisons. generally it is assumes they they are supposed to be prohibitively expensive, and post PCs never even give a second thought. Not to mention that the sale/trade of poisons might be taboo in certain societies.

Are these poisons for enemy use, or are the PCs supposed to find and use them?

[PossibleCabbage]

For the pricing of poisons there's not a formula or something but I would consider the following to try to estimate a price:

1) Where does it come from? Does it come from especially rare animals and plants, or from more common ones?

2) How difficult/dangerous is the raw material to procure?

3) How much expertise does it take to refine the raw materials into a poison?

4) What sort of legal penalties would the maker or seller of the poison experience in their society if caught by the authorities?

If your poison comes from the organs of a very rare, very dangerous creature that in a remote area, and requires a tremendously talented alchemist to make it into a poison, and it is being sold it in a society where poison is very, very illegal then you should make it prohibitively expensive. When some of those things aren't true, it should be less expensive.

[BigP4nda]

Timebomb wrote:

Are these poisons for enemy use, or are the PCs supposed to find and use them?

both

[BigP4nda]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

For the pricing of poisons there's not a formula or something but I would consider the following to try to estimate a price:

1) Where does it come from? Does it come from especially rare animals and plants, or from more common ones?

2) How difficult/dangerous is the raw material to procure?

3) How much expertise does it take to refine the raw materials into a poison?

4) What sort of legal penalties would the maker or seller of the poison experience in their society if caught by the authorities?

If your poison comes from the organs of a very rare, very dangerous creature that in a remote area, and requires a tremendously talented alchemist to make it into a poison, and it is being sold it in a society where poison is very, very illegal then you should make it prohibitively expensive. When some of those things aren't true, it should be less expensive.

This actually helps a lot! thanks, I think I can come up with some reasonable prices if I keep this in mind...the main thing I wanna do is alter the durations and number of saves to cure, as well as the DC of the save.

[Blueluck]

A good guideline might be to look at spells. They have save DC, caster level, and rules for making single use items (potions), which could line up quite well with poisons.

"The costs for materials and ingredients are subsumed in the cost for brewing the potion: 25 gp × the level of the spell × the level of the caster." Using that formula a potion of Harm would cost 25 x 6 x 11 = 1650 gold and have a save DC of 19.

Ways to balance poisons:

• Price
• Availability
• Save DC

[BigP4nda]

Blueluck wrote:

A good guideline might be to look at spells. They have save DC, caster level, and rules for making single use items (potions), which could line up quite well with poisons.

"The costs for materials and ingredients are subsumed in the cost for brewing the potion: 25 gp × the level of the spell × the level of the caster." Using that formula a potion of Harm would cost 25 x 6 x 11 = 1650 gold and have a save DC of 19.

Ways to balance poisons:

• Price
• Availability
• Save DC

That could work pretty well, so maybe something like:

10 gp * save DC * a value derived from the availability
so maybe derive the availability from something like this:
common - 1
uncommon - 2
rare - 3
very rare - 4
unique - 5
or maybe this sequence: 1, 5, 10, 25, 50?

And then i guess its legality would be added on afterwards based off of what city it was bought or sold in

EDIT: the DC would probably make it higher than necessary perhaps something more like "(save DC / 10)" cuz 10 would probably be minimum DC

EDIT 2: after testing the formula, dc/10 is too little, the normal DC seems to fit in pretty well actually, and the alternate availability scale works pretty well also, I was think maybe adding in the # of consecutive saves to cure into the formula so basically like this:
Availability:
common - x1
uncommon - x5
rare - x10
very rare - x25
unique/exotic - x50

10gp x (Save DC) x (Availabity Value) x (Cure value)
So a poison with a DC of 15 and requires 2 consecutive saves to cure and is very rare would be 6500gp: 10x15x25x2