I'm DMing a megadungeon. One player is asking if he can craft poison. My mind tells me "Okay, but where are you getting the components for <X> poison?" Another part tells me "But poison is cool and it never gets used!"
He has gold, so he could theoretically pay the 1/3 cost. However, who the heck is he going to buy the materials for the poison from? The air? There are a couple kobold tribes in the area, but they're either not friendly or they don't have access to every poison imaginable.
My thought is to list poisons that he could craft given what he's encountered. He still needs to make the checks, but he doesn't need to pay the gold cost because it makes no sense to in a megadungeon.
Thoughts? How would you handle this?
I'd say the "use what creatures you've encountered to make poison" rules should work.
Have a scaling number of doses he could get, and he better have a way to store it all!
Maybe use the same DC's to extract it as it took to save against it.
Would definitely allow some of the cooler poisons not listed as craftable to be used.
I would say he retroactively purchased the stuff needed to craft the poison if you are going to let him craft.
The thing is they entered the dungeon at level 1, his original character died, he's playing a new PC and neither PC had craft: alchemy until next session. It doesn't quite make sense in my head - and most of the gold they have, thanks to having entered this place at level 1, is from the dungeon.
In that case I would not let him craft the poison if I am trying to maintain some realism. I think the game assumes you are adding something to it, to keep it working outside of the host carrier. As an example oxidation will ruin venom unless it is stored correctly. It won't break the game, but poison is expensive(over priced in my opinion), but now you have more information to decide to follow the book or give the players a break.
Yeah, I'm definitely looking at letting him either do it at a reduced price or for free. I'm just figuring out what poisons he ought to be allowed to make.
Thanks for the thoughts. I'll be trying to include more ingredient-filled monsters, I think.
In 3.5 you could craft the poison at 1/6 instead of 1/3 of the price if you collected the poison yourself instead of paying for all of it, IIRC. I think that was in a splat book, and I think it is not a bad rule to use.
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Dungeons are by design full of monstrous aberrations and oozes, traps that may try to poison their victims, and the aforementioned kobolds, who may not sell to the PCs but still have to get their poison from somewhere.
Obtaining poison in a megadungeon should not be an issue. If anything, it should be the single easiest thing to acquire down there, besides gold.
I have an easier time believing your player can obtain poison ingredients than I do believing he's able to obtain food.
We've been handling food via the occasional spot of trade, killing certain monsters worth food, and survival checks (with penalties in areas that would have scarce food supplies if any).
But you do make a good point.
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The party rounds a corner and nearly slams into a lone duergar at a wide intersection. The palid dwarf-mutant has upon his back a massive double backpack along with a quartet of posts and planks. As the PCs ready their weapons the Duergar retreats a step and gestures plaintively. "Wait wait... you don't want kill Uncle Grystvugkh! He have what you need..." When the duergar grins a pair of centipedes crawl out a dead gap in his teeth.
As the party hesitates Uncle Grystvugkh begins dismantling his great pack. The planks unlatch and connect to the poles, with a tabletop mounted above. Suddenly there are jars, kits, and a few haphazard light weapons laid upon the stall he's constructed. "All good... all FRESH..." the crooked creature gestures to a variety of parts floating in said jars as his hump back is now unveiled beneath his load.
"You like? You no steal, you no cheat, and you no kill Uncle Grystvugkh. He know some, find much and always guarantee wares. You play nice with Uncle Grystvugkh, you get nice things. You wants, yes?" a slick of drool falls to the floor from the man's cracked lips as the thin strands that pass for hair brush over his bloodshot eyes. As vile as some of Grystvugkh's merchandise appears, it looks as if there are some things you might be able to use...
So you have the party meet a "traveling salesman" in the dungeon. Maybe while walking, or maybe they stumble on the guy's "shop." Sure, they might just kill the guy but there's lots of ways out of that. If they question the merchant and why he's selling to them its simple. Kobolds have money and stuff, but sometimes need other stuff. This merchant is simply providing for his customers. Why sell to adventurers? Because he's an opportunist that sells to those who have the money. He has no stake in the game.
This guy can now become a permanent fixture or might mysteriously disappear. You don't have to explain him; better if you don't. Hell, if you want to make him REALLY mysterious, have the PCs run into some ancient heiroglyph that they KNOW is a thousand years old and have the same guy show up depicted in the writing, warts and all. He's ALWAYS been here...