Hello. The Vivisectionist Toxicant Alchemist in my Emerald Spire game is coming up to a level where I said she could have a chance to bypass poison immunities, due to the sheer amount of poison immune enemies in higher levels.
I've already made a feat for her to bypass immunity with regular poisons, but I need something for her toxic secretions. We've had disagreements on how powerful, how flexible, and how costly it should be.
What are your thoughts on this? Would it serve best as a discovery? A new class feature? Should it bypass all creatures' immunity or should she have to decided what it will work on?
Thank you.
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I'm personally not fond of abilities that negate immunities. It defeats the entire purpose of such abilities, and creates a slippery slope of effects countering effects that counter effects. In almost all cases, creatures have these immunities because of an obvious in-world reason (how can you poison a skeleton, construct, or another creature that doesn't have any flesh or circulatory systems?).
However, existing material usually takes either (or a combination) of two approaches:
1) The character option only negates an immunity possessed by a specific group of creatures. I prefer this one because such options usually have lore reasons why the option can negate the immunity. For example, the undead bloodline allows a sorcerer to enchant undead because they're partially undead themselves.
2) The character option negates an immunity, but the target still benefits from the defense in a lesser way. For example, some spells that negate immunities grant the target a large bonus on their saving throw. There's a kineticist talent that negates immunity to energy damage, but the target still takers significantly reduced damage.
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It should work on everything. Normally I'd agree with Cyrad about overcoming immunities being a generally bad idea, but poisons are so horrendously bad in this game the poor things need any leg up they can get. Even without immunity poison DCs are too low and work so slow that most monsters are already going to resist them outright or only be mildly inconvenienced during the 4 rounds they have left to exist after meeting an adventuring party.
Letting people overcome fire immunity, or immunity to mind affecting can be problematic (and these are usually limited heavily in some way) but the chances of poison unbalancing your game are slim to none even if your Alchemist takes all the classic Alchemist options that make them useful.
For the record, the feat I made was:
"Poison Penetration: Your poisons can be prepared deadly enough to penetrate through immunities .
Prerequisite: Int 17, Craft (alchemy) 5 ranks
Benefit: If a poison made with a Craft (Alchemy) check exceeds 20 plus the target's CR it ignores the creature's natural poison immunity.
You can also create a poison that can be combined with a racial poison as a free action.
This poison 10 gold per character level in materials. The check is made at the time of combining."
I tried to simulate spell resistance there and think it is somewhat balanced.
Keep in mind in this topic I am referring to the Toxic Secretion ability Toxicants, which behaves slightly differently than mundane poisons.
I'm definitely leaning on the side of buffing it. The only issue I've had with poisons is the one that renders the target unconscious after two failed saves.
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There's a kineticist talent that negates immunity to energy damage, but the target still takers significantly reduced damage.
It should work on everything. Normally I'd agree with Cyrad about overcoming immunities being a generally bad idea, but poisons are so horrendously bad in this game the poor things need any leg up they can get. Even without immunity poison DCs are too low and work so slow that most monsters are already going to resist them outright or only be mildly inconvenienced during the 4 rounds they have left to exist after meeting an adventuring party.
Letting people overcome fire immunity, or immunity to mind affecting can be problematic (and these are usually limited heavily in some way) but the chances of poison unbalancing your game are slim to none even if your Alchemist takes all the classic Alchemist options that make them useful.
Do you think this should be included baseline, or should it cost something?
I think it should cost SOMETHING, just like something like Clustered Shots (to basically ignore DR) costs something, but it definitely shouldn't be more than a Feat to do.
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No one has brought up the Celestial Poisons discovery? It takes care of the largest number of enemies that are poison immune (evil outsiders and undead).
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Azten: Draining Infusion (though only works on creatures with the right subtype). There's also the Searing Infusion that strips away fire resistance.
It should work on everything. Normally I'd agree with Cyrad about overcoming immunities being a generally bad idea, but poisons are so horrendously bad in this game the poor things need any leg up they can get. Even without immunity poison DCs are too low and work so slow that most monsters are already going to resist them outright or only be mildly inconvenienced during the 4 rounds they have left to exist after meeting an adventuring party.
The OP is talking about a special ability from an archetype that's a poison effect with a scaling DC.
I'm aware. The DC is no higher than optimized poisons, and the effects in many ways get WEAKER as the Toxicant levels (seriously you trade Dazed for STAGGERED at higher levels? WTF?).
Even then, all of those conditions can be applied in ways that don't run afoul of blanket immunities by other classes. It's a restriction that hurts the class' efficacy more th5sn it adds balance.
I should also point out to peopme that are worried about "How do you poison a skeleton or construct": You still can't. They aren't immune to poisons, they're immune to Fort saves.