One of my players in my upcoming game is a bit of a wannabe munchkin. He is constantly trying to look for ways to "game" the system
His latest idea is to use poison on his crossbow bolts as his spellcaster character (as a back up). He clearly thinks it is as simple as a computer game and just a straight power up.
To further highlight this he has told me he is only really interested in two poisons. One of which is Drow Poison (the other is Bloodroot). And he is playing an Elf...
So he cares little for sense and background
I tried to point out to him that this is a city under martial law and that buying poison might not be easy
I don't want to just say "no". How should I deal with this.
- Should he be able to craft something like Drow Poison despite being an Elf with no reason to know how? (I am not aware of the posion crafting rules)
- Should I increase the price / rarity of poisons
- I think I should increase notoriety if he buys lots of poison?
- How would guards react if they were to search and find it on him? Assuming it didn't become a fight
- I could also send him to the sewer to find poisonous creatures (the group will not go with him and he would be at severe risk and the player is far too risk averse in every aspect to wander for too long on his own)
It seems to be a balancing act with creating a disincentive and knocking the rest of the game off track
Alternatively should I just ignore it? Poison is often underpowered and expensive...
(I just really hate the idea of an Elf using/making Drow poison and of him trying to buy it in a Human city under martial law.
One of my players in a previous game used poison. Turns out it's really not effective. (It's expensive, save DCs are low, it's a standard action to apply it to a weapon with a 5% chance you'll poison yourself unless you have the "poison use" class feature, it takes a long time to craft it, and there's probably another thing or two I'm missing.)
But to answer your questions:
So long as he has the appropriate skills there's really nothing wrong with an elf knowing how. But you may want it to either be in his backstory or through role-playing so that you can use his contacts as NPCs in whichever way you would like to.
Increasing the price? Maybe not at first but if they start to become a problem I'd have the Newt increases the prices for sure. (For either the poisons or the ingredients.)
Notoriety? Maybe a D4 if he's doing it too often and the word has a reason to spread.
Guards would likely arrest him if he's caught with any. (I would assume it would be illegal to own poison in Kintargo).
Sending him into the sewers/making ingredients hard to come by may be a good deterrent but may also have him taking time away from the rest of the group. (Unless you run it one-on-one between sessions.)
First, you can find information about the poison game mechanic on page 557 of the Core Rulebook. Including a very important point: "Applying poison to a weapon or single piece of ammunition is a standard action. Whenever a character applies or readies a poison for use there is a 5% chance that he exposes himself to the poison and must save against the poison as normal. This does not consume the dose of poison. Whenever a character attacks with a poisoned weapon, if the attack roll results in a natural 1, he exposes himself to the poison." The only way to avoid this is to be part of a class that provides poison use as a class ability. So make sure the player knows this is a risk. Every time he preps the crossbow bolts 5% chance per bolt he poisons himself. Every time he loads the crossbow 5% chance he poisons himself. Every time he rolls a 1 while firing, he poisons himself. Poison himself meaning he has to make the requisite fort save.
Second, I don't know what the official stance of Cheliax is on poison [which is absolutely intended as a challenge to Cheliax experts to clarify if such a policy has been published] but it doesn't seem too much of a leap to state that poison is not sold as readily as adventuring gear (note: it's listed in a completely different section of the Core Rulebook.) So... (and here I'm making it up)
Of course alchemists can sell poison in Cheliax as long as they keep written records of who they sold it to (this is a lawful society so bureaucracy is king.) This leads to a black market in poison for those customers that are looking to avoid Imperial entanglements. The pc is free to buy the poison from either source and take the risks associated - either the Dottari and others know he has it or he's breaking the law. And it would seem reasonable for black market products under martial law to come at a premium, say twice the price?
Third, I understand your reaction to drow poison from a background perspective but it's the cheapest poison on the list which does not suggest "made only the drow" rarity. I suspect this is just a short hand from game designers to sync the poison with the Bestiary entry for Drow. You could easily rename it Sleep poison and remove the Drow entanglements. (I suspect the price is also why the player went for it - it and Bloodroot are among the cheapest injury poisons.) Putting enemies to sleep also introduces some role-playing considerations, pending how your table addresses such things. If your group just coup de grace's enemies who are unconscious without thinking about it, then maybe not (and maybe that's why player chose it - if sleep = death, then it's really a fort save or die poison.) But if your group at least thinks about such things then it creates some additional player/pc decisioning. Do they take prisoners? What do they do with helpless enemies? You don't have to be a paladin to think ruthlessly killing a helpless foe is not a good thing to do. Or what if they want prisoners - for interrogation or to spare lives of enemies who are just following orders (such as the Dottari?) The sleep spell introduces similar quandaries.
Oh and there is always the GM's standby for when the players start using game mechanics in undesirable ways: what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
If you start poisoning people, the Dottari and other enemies will too. And not just on the one pc using poison. They won't discriminate - the Silver Ravens are filthy poisoners, they get what they deserve. And House Thrune has a lot more money and access to a lot better poisons than the pc's... This can be very effective at a table with other players present, whose pc's will pay the price for the one pc's tactics.
Thanks everyone. I like all the approaches especially the goose and gander one
I feel the player is considering it a save vs death idea but I might be underestimating them
I will remove the drow flavour.
I like an excuse to bring Newt in as well.
I did not know that for a bolt there were three chances of poisoning yourself. Applying I knew and firing . I did not know about loading but that makes sense.
And of course there is always the point on poison being expensive and low DC. So i won’t make too big a deal about it
One thing to be wary of if the enemies start using poison as well:
It makes it much easier for the PC to get it as all they have to do is knockout/kill the enemy and take their supply.