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So unlike probably a lot of people, I actually used poisons in PF1e on a fairly regular basis (and not just Drow poison, though that's always a staple), so I decided to give the new poison rules a few looks. My first reaction was that this looks really, really similar to the Unchained poison rules (which I wasn't really a fan of), but after reading more I got over that. Still not sure if it's better or worse than Unchained in terms of design, but it's not identical. Just as a note regarding my thoughts, I'm going through these as a player who would potentially be using the poisons. I also won't be talking about the spells and the two magic weapons that do poison damage, just the alchemical items.
The Good
First things first, I do like that poisons are now immediately impactful. One of the common issues with poisons in PF1e was that they usually took too long to do their job or were a waste of money and actions when you could just smack someone with your sword and kill things only slightly slower. Now you smack someone with a poison and BAM! Dice start ticking down and it really feels like you did something with your time. The boosting of DCs for the poisons also helps, as higher-level poisons will actually do something against creatures beyond level 5. I'm also glad that Inhaled poison rules are now plain and clear, as in PF1e the fact that the cloud lasted for 1 minute was hard to find.
The Meh
One of the things that's kind of a wash for me regarding poisons is the inclusion of the various poison stages, where as a target continues to fail their saves against poisons the effects get progressively worse and worse. Now don't get me wrong, I love that idea, but I don't know why it was included as it adds complexity right back into the poison equation where ability score damage was removed. Now instead of having to keep track of which ability scores are reduced by how much, you have to keep track of which stage you or the creature are poisoned at and if you fail or pass which direction you move on the scale. God help you if you have two separate poison tracks going on at the same time, in PF1e you would just have an additional die to roll when taking your damage for the round.
I'm also a bit meh on the change to Contact poisons. Previously they were very similar to Injury poisons in function, and could effectively act as Injury poisons with the bonus that they could also be applied directly to the target. Now they can ONLY be applied to the target, as it's "infeasible" to apply it to a weapon because you would also be touching it. To which I say "Poison Use" and "How are you applying it to a creature if you can't touch it?". More of a personal gripe if anything, but it's a silly justification since by that same logic I can't poison a crown or something similar since I'd have to touch it.
The Bad
The first major problem I have with poisons is that they're incredibly and absurdly expensive now. Before they were pricey, but if you had a bit of change lying around you could still buy some vials of the cheap stuff, and if you saved up a bit you could get Tears of Death or something for a special occasion. Now a vial of Tears of Death (which was one of the most expensive poisons in PF1e at 6500 gp) costs 9000 gp and is listed as a level 20 poison, meaning that a single-use consumable item will cost you a gigantic chunk of your money. Alchemists can sidestep the cost with Quick Alchemy, but that presents its own issues because of the one-round time limit on created items.
Contact poisons (at least the ones listed in the playtest) have an onset time of 1 minute, which is well out of scope of combat and even most poisoned traps a person would lay, so unless there's a way to dunk someone in a Contact poison those are not usable with Quick Alchemy outside of the Alchemist's Poison Touch feat which makes the whole thing cost 2 Resonance Points and 2-3 actions for something that won't even take effect for 10 rounds. Inhaled poisons have only one particularly impactful option in Brimstone Fumes, but that's 16th level, and the other two are handy debuffs but I'm not quite sure how the inert rule applies to a cloud of toxins. Ingested poisons are right out. And that leaves Injury poisons, all of which require 3 actions to apply to a weapon making them impossible to use. Rogues get a pair of feats that DO let them apply poisons to their weapons faster, but handing the poison off to the party rogue means that you took your entire turn and part of theirs to maybe possibly get a poison off on a target. There's also the option of multiclassing, but that would take an Alchemist two feats and 8 levels to get ahold of, three feats and 16 levels if they're going for the ability to not waste gold and resources.
And speaking of wasting resources, that's another thing that's kind of grinding my gears. In PF1e if you missed with an effect that would trigger on a hit, you didn't waste it. That worked for touch spells, and it worked for poisons. Until you hit your target, you could get as many tries as you needed. Don't know if touch spells work the same way any more, but poisons magically fly off your dagger if you miss your target, rendering them useless despite the cost both in terms of actions to apply and gold. I guess it's meant as a balance point for the increased DCs and damage, but you already have a balance point in the incredible cost that it takes to use the poisons. It would be like drinking a healing potion, except part of the time it just turns into water as you drink it, and even after you drink it your body might just reject the healing anyway. The best thing I guess I can say about that is that the Injury poisons are on average cheaper than the other ones, but that's still a big chunk of change to use them.
Finally, there's still significant falloff in terms of effectiveness. Injury poisons (the only combat-viable poisons) go up to level 13, so past there they essentially have no more use. Contact poisons sort of take over on that front, but the only class that can make use of them in a combat manner is the Alchemist, and it needs to spend 2 resonance to do it per round with a non-insignificant chance of just wasting their action and Resonance. Not to mention that the onset time still exists.
The Ugly
So, the DCs for the poisons have been upgraded since PF1e. That's great, and anyone who looks at the list will agree that a DC 40 poison is threatening at level 20, and was even in PF1e where the highest Fort save in the game was a +36 from Father Dagon.
For players.
For monsters, on the other hand, it's more of a drop in the bucket. Purple Worm Venom is the highest level Injury poison at level 13, and has a DC of 29 at a cost of 400 gold. An Ice Yai is a level 13 creature and has a fort save of +22. That's the PEAK of poison use in combat. At level 13, you have a 70% chance to waste your resources and actions, 60% if you're an Alchemist with Potent Poisoner. A natural 1 always fails of course, but those are some terrible odds, and only entrenches the strategy of dousing your entire arsenal in Sleep Poison (the new Drow Poison) and just hoping that you hit that 1 in 400 chance that your target rolls two natural 1s in a row.
Another issue is the lack of special effects in the new poisons. Poisons in PF1e have way more to them than most players probably realized or bothered to learn. The vast majority of them did simply do ability score damage, yes, but there were many that had interesting and unique effects beyond that, and were usually the most powerful and fun ones. Cytillesh Extract and Confabulation Powder could be used in concert to rewrite a creature's memories with poison. Tongue Twist and Scholarblight could be used to very specifically shut down a caster for assassination, and Bloodpyre was a poison that people could actually use as a desperate power boost. The closest thing to any of those is the note that Wolfsbane can cure Lycanthropy if the victim survives the dose, but I have a strong hunch that it's more of an outlier than the norm. The newest poison with the Cytillesh name, Cytillesh Oil, is just a damage-bonus Injury poison, where the other poisons had effects that muddled their target's memories in interesting ways. I can only hope I'm wrong on that front.
The TL;DR
New poisons are more impactful than before but still as complicated if not more so. They're also too costly to use both in terms of action economy and gold. The DCs also seem to be scaled to be more effective against PCs than monsters. Poison effects are also very heavily pared down, and generally only do damage or specific status effects. Seems like poisons are going back to GM-only territory.
Thanks for the info.
I do have to say though, I really love the idea of Wolfsbane.
Thanks for the info.
I do have to say though, I really love the idea of Wolfsbane.
Yeah, Wolfsbane is neat, but for some reason in PF1e it didn't have any effects related to Lycanthropy despite there being stuff that explicitly says "this cures lycanthropy". So that's at least one bonus there.
I think someone forgot to list the poisons (and some other equipment) in sp rather than gp.
Great analysis. I particularly like your analysis on poison use vs monster saves. That's relevant and will make all those lower level injury poisons with rider effects be harder to use on a regular basis.
I really like the idea of making a debuffer in combat that doesn't use magic, and with low DCs and high cost, it makes it hard to do if you're not an alchemist. Which is fine for the alchemist, except he has his own problems with low buff/debuff capabilities, low damage output, and high cost for class abilities.