Killing The Ravager


Rules Questions


In a home game, one of my players wants to defeat The Ravager. Basically his plan was to use the rules from the "Kingdoms of Kalamar Player's Guide" to increase the DC of a poison that knocks you unconscious. He would then throw the vial at the Ravager & knock it out, because he would boost the DC higher than the Ravager's fort save.

We've run through a simulated combat of him at level 1 vs the Ravager with this poison. In the first round he spent a hero point to go first, & threw the vial at the Ravager (who was in flier form). The poison hit AC 19 (which missed the Ravager's touch AC of 20) so he spent his second hero point to add +4 to the roll & hit. The Ravager failed the resulting fort save, causing it to fall unconscious towards the earth. From there the player ran up to the Ravager & hit it with similarly boosted CON damaging poisons to kill it.

My questions: Does the use of one hero point warrant going first?
Is throwing a vial of poison towards the Ravager a ranged touch attack to affect it?
Can you kill this creature with CON damaging poisons?

Let me know if you think of any other errors, or if I've posted this in the wrong forum. Thanks in advance!


1 person marked this as a favorite.
magispitt wrote:
Does the use of one hero point warrant going first?

You can use a hero point to act out of initiative. So even if the Ravager won initiative, you can just use the hero point to act first anyways. I think it's limited to a standard action though.

magispitt wrote:
Is throwing a vial of poison towards the Ravager a ranged touch attack to affect it?

Depends on the poison. It would need to be a "contact" poison. If that's the case, yes.

magispitt wrote:
Can you kill this creature with CON damaging poisons?

I...think so.

~~~

You forgot one huge detail. You cannot spend more than 1 hero point during a single round of combat.

~~~

As an aside, I don't think it's wise to allow a player at any level to boost the DC of a poison that high with a single dose. That seems like something that the GM should just say no to.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

What are these rules that let you boost the DC of a poison high enough to compete with a CR 30 creature using level 1 character wealth?


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Arachnofiend wrote:
What are these rules that let you boost the DC of a poison high enough to compete with a CR 30 creature using level 1 character wealth?

GM hand-waving I'm assuming.


(Deleted for overly snarky reply to the entire concept.)


1 person marked this as a favorite.

First I'd closely examine the rules for increasing the DC on the poison. Something/rules allowing a 1st level PC to boost the DC by enough to even remotely effect a CR 30 creature whose Fort save is +34 is way out of whack and badly needs a GMs oversight/editing (i.e. overruling).

Second, how far away was the Ravager when struck ... something tells me no range increments were involved. Acid flasks, Alchemist Fire and Holy Water all have a range increment of 10 making the maximum distance to the target 50 feet since it is a thrown weapon. At 50ft that is a -10 to hit. This of course assumes the character had the poison neatly packaged by someone with the ability to use poison in a container designed to break on impact and release the contact poison. Of course handling and using such poison without the appropriate skills/class abilities ought to be quite dangerous or the character runs the risk of having the CON poison effect themselves. Never mind campaign issues (which may or may not exist) concerning the moral and ethical considerations of manufacturing and using such deadly substances. I highly suggest such do exist and consequences for ignoring them as well.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Kayerloth wrote:
Never mind campaign issues (which may or may not exist) concerning the moral and ethical considerations of manufacturing and using such deadly substances. I highly suggest such do exist and consequences for ignoring them as well.

Man what.

Once you've decided to kill someone, that's the end of your moral considerations. There's no moral high ground to killing someone with a sword versus killing them with a vial of poison.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Manly-man teapot wrote:
Kayerloth wrote:
Never mind campaign issues (which may or may not exist) concerning the moral and ethical considerations of manufacturing and using such deadly substances. I highly suggest such do exist and consequences for ignoring them as well.

Man what.

Once you've decided to kill someone, that's the end of your moral considerations. There's no moral high ground to killing someone with a sword versus killing them with a vial of poison.

Uhh, that is considered extremely false by people, organizations, and cultures across the world and throughout history.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
CampinCarl9127 wrote:
Manly-man teapot wrote:

Man what.

Once you've decided to kill someone, that's the end of your moral considerations. There's no moral high ground to killing someone with a sword versus killing them with a vial of poison.

Uhh, that is considered extremely false by people, organizations, and cultures across the world and throughout history.

Most of whom had swords, and had their meals served to them by people who didn't have swords.

But no-one in history has ever dealt with the situation we're discussing. I recognize the moral and ethical difference between looking a man in the eye as you put your sword where your mouth is and risk your life to kill him, and you feel his death in your muscles; versus making a decision in private that leads to his death later. I also recognize the difference between a rifle and poison gas. But neither of those distinctions are relevant to the fight being discussed.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Manly-man teapot wrote:
CampinCarl9127 wrote:
Manly-man teapot wrote:

Man what.

Once you've decided to kill someone, that's the end of your moral considerations. There's no moral high ground to killing someone with a sword versus killing them with a vial of poison.

Uhh, that is considered extremely false by people, organizations, and cultures across the world and throughout history.

Most of whom had swords, and had their meals served to them by people who didn't have swords.

But no-one in history has ever dealt with the situation we're discussing. I recognize the moral and ethical difference between looking a man in the eye as you put your sword where your mouth is and risk your life to kill him, and you feel his death in your muscles; versus making a decision in private that leads to his death later. I also recognize the difference between a rifle and poison gas. But neither of those distinctions are relevant to the fight being discussed.

I wasn't talking about the moral or ethical decision to use it on a 'monster' particularly on a personal level, people poison vermin, insects, etc. by the drove in our world. But if you and I go seeking some highly lethal substance you can bet your last dollar that the powers that be will not generally just fork it over without all sorts of 'red tape' and that avoiding such is going to carry its own repercussions. All I was really aiming at was actions should have consequences and acquiring and manufacturing something of that nature generally provokes a strong response from, as you put it, the folks with swords.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Kayerloth wrote:


I wasn't talking about the moral or ethical decision to use it on a 'monster' particularly on a personal level, people poison vermin, insects, etc. by the drove in our world. But if you and I go seeking some highly lethal substance you can bet your last dollar that the powers that be will not generally just fork it over without all sorts of 'red tape' and that avoiding such is going to carry its own repercussions. All I was really aiming at was actions should have consequences and acquiring and manufacturing something of that nature generally provokes a strong response from, as you put it, the folks with swords.

But you and I live in highly structured world where small sums will purchase weapons and substances way, way above what is "level appropriate" for us.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I don't believe you can kill it with poison as its death resistance causes it to automatically pass any save kill or permanently incapacitate it.


Wow, thanks for all the responses! From what I hear:
1. You can't use multiple hero points in a round
2. I should have been using range increments, which would have increased the effective AC
3. The Ravager might just be immune to death by poison anyways

As far as how he got the poison, I'll explain briefly. First he needed the money to increase the DC of the poison, as all the rules I've seen (including the ones he used) have the poison become increasingly expensive as the DC rises. He basically found some home-brew rules around coin forgery that I thought might be cool to try, so I asked around for how much it would take to hire crafters that could forge the coins. With the money from that venture he also hired crafters to increase the DC of the poison, hence far exceeding the WBL.

None of this has actually happened in the game yet, though we were simulating the combat in advance to see what would happen. His goal was to jump from somewhere around 1st level to 22nd level in one go, write a reddit post on his ventures, & feel awesome for a while. He didn't tell me about the poison & how he would beat the Ravager before we enacted the combat, & I had only allowed the home-brew forgery rules because he said that he wouldn't use them to become overly powerful & such.

I am currently looking to find RAW ways to dissuade him from his current path, as I dislike vetoing actions that players have spent a lot of effort on. That being said I do agree that it is a bit crazy for a first level character to harvest xp from a CR 30 opponent, so I am trying my best to patch this up without just saying "no soup for you!" I've talked to him about the hero points & he relented on that, and as he had already spent his two hero points from first level & a backstory on evading death he has none to spend on the moment - this delays his ascension to level two at the earliest & buys me some time.

For the range increments, I do agree that I should have been using them though I know he will have a few questions. 1. What would the range increment on a thrown poison be & what would be it's max distance? 2. What is a reasonable starting distance for the Ravager in this encounter, & should the Ravager be granted a surprise round? 3. Does the thrown poison count as an improvised weapon?

CrystalSpellblade's point about the Ravager being outright immune to death by poison might be the golden RAW bullet I'm looking for, can anyone confirm this?

Finally, I think I found the Homebrew rules, which might actually be from Tome of Trade. Here is the message he sent me:

Forgery Rules:
You can create fake currency. Doing this allows you to turn less money into more. Using Forgery in this way costs 7 gp for every 10 gp you try to make, and requires access to a source of metals. Your Forgery check is opposed by the Forgery check of the person who receives your fake coins. If their result is higher, they can tell the coins are fake. By spending 9 gp for every 10 gp you make, you can take a +6 bonus to this use of Forgery. In exchange for a -6 penalty to your Forgery, you can spend just 5 gp for every 10 you make. These modifiers are summarized in Table 6-4. Every 200 gp of fake coins you make takes 1 hour to make.

TABLE 6-4: Forgery Modifiers
Rate Modifier
5 gp/10 gp -6
7 gp/10 gp +0
9 gp/10 gp +6

I will defiantly not be using these rules in future games (learned my lesson the hard way) but barring a veto for now, what other ways might one adjudicate this rule? You can either post your response to that question in this thread or in the one I previously mentioned, though I'm sure the message boards might want older threads to go to the bottom.

Sorry for the long post, thank you very much for all your suggestions so far!


Well, there's a number of problems with why he can't do this.

1) Those homebrew forgery rules are broken. Do not allow them.
1a) Even if those rules were in place, why is the law/criminal underground not coming after him for all this counterfeit coin? He's basically created an incredibly huge forgery empire that nobody seeks to throw a wrench into.

2) A thrown range increment on a thrown poison is 10 ft. I'm not 100% sure what the max range is, but I'm inclined to remember it as 50 feet. Therefore if he gets anywhere near close enough to actually throw it, that thing is going to maul him to death in a single hit.

3) What are these rules for infinite increase of the DC of a poison? I don't care how much money you have, there should be a cap on that kind of nonsense. Normally the rule of thumb goes that if you want to increase the DC, you hit them with more doses.

4) If the poison has the ability to incapacitate or kill the Ravager, it is immune to it.


Death Resistance wrote:
The Ravager possesses an innate resistance to effects that would kill or permanently incapacitate it, including petrification and imprisonment. Against such effects it is considered to automatically make any required saving throws.

Poisons generally have a frequency at which they occur. Fail the save, take the poison effect. Make the save, you don't take the poison effects. The Ravager has a Con of 46 which means, assuming a usual onset and frequency, he would have to keep it asleep between 8-46 minutes(assuming 1D6 con damage). A creature dies when it has taken damage equal to or exceeding its constitution score. The Ravager automatically makes any required saving throw against an effect that would kill it or permanently incapacitate it so it should pass the saving throw before the poison deals enough damage to its con score to kill it.

Also, remember that a natural 20 on a saving throw always a success, so you have a chance to succeed on the saving throw.

You should also find out what poisons he plans on using so you can find out their frequency and duration.


First of all don't allow those poison rules. Thrown items have a max range of 50 feet. For every 10 feet after the first 10 it is a penalty to the attack roll.

Also there is only 1 hero point per turn.

How is he supposed to attract the attention of this beast? It has int 6 and wisdom 25 meaning it might be smart enough to avoid any obvious traps. The creature can also fly, making it smart enough to try to ambush him in return.

I think when the creature is supposed to make any save that might kill it, it was referring to things that will kill it with one rule, not that it can make saves until the final roll comes up, but that doesn't really matter here IMHO becuase those poison rules should not be used as I stated earlier.

If he does this to the Ravager what will stop him from doing it to every NPC? For the sake of in-world consistency why has nobody else ever done it before, and why is nobody doing it to the PC's? If a 1st level PC can do this, there is no logical reason why it is not a consistent thing in the game world already that I can think of.


Not sure about the range increment on a vial of poison but given most of the other special substances have a range increment of 10ft I'd be using that unless found otherwise.

Max Range (bolding mine):

CRB wrote:
Range: Any attack at more than this distance is penalized for range. Beyond this range, the attack takes a cumulative –2 penalty for each full range increment (or fraction thereof) of distance to the target. For example, a dagger (with a range of 10 feet) thrown at a target that is 25 feet away would incur a –4 penalty. A thrown weapon has a maximum range of five range increments. A projectile weapon can shoot to 10 range increments.

Does the character possess the ability Poison Use and/or Craft(alchemy) in order to make and/or safely use poison? Otherwise how is he getting a hold of this stuff.

As for how far away does the encounter start ... well that really depends but you said it was in a flying form and it is a gargantuan creature. To me that says 100's of feet and certainly not 10's. The Ravager isn't a subtle creature and has little reason to hide or use stealth. It has a perception of +45 so it's going to note most 1st level characters a long long long way off who aren't under total cover and even then it might hear them move around inside their pathetic little hovels. Note it also has Tremorsense 60ft and Scent even as a flyer. In short the PC gets first shot pretty much only if it ignores him and essentially yields the initiative without a pretty darn impressive plan on the PCs part.


Putting aside how broken the rules are, even with all of these rules in place the player still won't be able to kill the monster. At best, the CON poison will bring it to a CON score of 1 before it automatically makes the save. By the looks of it, nothing barring damage with an epic level weapon or an artifact will kill it. All of this is of course ignoring how a level 1 PC would know about the resistances of, much less encounter this creature or the fact that the PC will be killed before he gets in range of the creature for the poison vial thanks to that +45 perception.


I mean, if you're going to allow 3.5 material and breaking the game, he'd be better off just building Pun-Pun.

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Rules Questions / Killing The Ravager All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.