Poison - how exactly does it work?

[pauljathome]

I ran doomsday dawn today and several questions came up about how poison works (giant centipede encounter).

Stats for Giant centipede poison reproduced below
Centipede Venom (poison) Saving Throw Fortitude DC 13; Maximum
Duration 6 rounds; Stage 1 1d6 poison and flat-footed (1 round);
Stage 2 1d6 poison, flat-footed, and sluggish 2 (1 round)

In one round, 2 giant centipedes bit the same character. He proceeded to fail the first save and crit fail the second.

Questions:

1) Giant centipede poison has no listed onset time. We assumed that this means that the victim IMMEDIATELY takes the 1d6 poison damage and gains the flat-footed condition

2) Given that the poison only has 2 stages we assumed that the crit fail on the second poison was functionally identical to a normal failure. Ie, the victim was now at stage 2

3) We couldn't agree whether going from stage 1 to stage 2 does an ADDITIONAL 1d6 poison damage or not. If it DOES do an additional D6 of damage would you also take that additional D6 damage on an initial crit fail?

4) "On a success, you reduce the stage by 1 and stake the effects of that stage again". Ambiguous grammar. Does "that stage" mean the damage of the stage you reduced to or the stage that you reduced from?

5) What happens if you go beyond the maximum number of stages? We assumed you just stayed at the maximum number (2 in the case of centipede venom).

[Dante Doom]

1) Yes

2) Yes, and repeat the effect

3) You only do the effects from the stage you are, dont take in consideration from the other stages

4) The stage you reduced, the stage you were dont affect you more.

5) Just stays in the maximum stage

[Grimcleaver]

Whoops. Did that wrong. Yeah we should probably have had some more character deaths then. I assumed it was 1d6 the first round if you fail, then 2d6 (I misread the 2 from stage 2 as 2d6) if you fail the second round, then the flat footed and sluggish last for the six rounds.

But no, yeah that really does look like six rounds of make a save or get murdered some more by nasty centipede poison.

You guys, this centipede poison SUCKS. We may want to look at reducing the DC or the damage or raising the CR on these critters to make it not so much of a player cuisinart.

[Weirdo]

Hm, we also had a character fail three saves vs centipede poison in a round and I think I only applied 2d6 points of damage (one for reaching Stage 1 and one for reaching Stage 2). That last d6 might have knocked them out (though their next save was a crit success so I don't think it would have killed the character).

[DeathQuaker]

Sorry for bumping up an oldish thread, but we just ran the fight with the centipedes last night (yes, we are very behind; hard to find a lot of time to play unfortunately) and we were all very confused by the poison too.

One of the things we could not find clearly was if, say, three centipedes each poisoned a target, was it considered poisoned once--but worse a stage--or poisoned three times and having to track each case of poisoning separately. (And therefore, do you need to make three saving throws per round or one?)

Reading the conversation above it looks like indeed yes, but several of us were looking at the rules and couldn't find anything. It doesn't mean it wasn't there, just we weren't looking in the right place. What we would see, the affliction rules talk about saving per round to move up or down a stage, but not how to deal with multiple doses of poison, that I could find. Of course I was trying to flip between the Bestiary, the afflictions page, and the specific poisons page, so I may well just have been flipping at the wrong point. (I really feel like the Bestiary needs to include things like specific poison/disease etc effects in it [though of course not the rules to run them per se]--I should not have to be flipping constantly between two books to figure out how a very basic monster ability works.)

All I can say is we probably should have had a TPK and didn't because we probably adjudicated the poison wrong. Well, that and the party withdrew and then the centipedes crit failed vs the sorcerer's burning hands spell, but that was just luck.

[GreatCowGuru]

DeathQuaker wrote:

Sorry for bumping up an oldish thread, but we just ran the fight with the centipedes last night (yes, we are very behind; hard to find a lot of time to play unfortunately) and we were all very confused by the poison too.

One of the things we could not find clearly was if, say, three centipedes each poisoned a target, was it considered poisoned once--but worse a stage--or poisoned three times and having to track each case of poisoning separately. (And therefore, do you need to make three saving throws per round or one?)

Reading the conversation above it looks like indeed yes, but several of us were looking at the rules and couldn't find anything. It doesn't mean it wasn't there, just we weren't looking in the right place. What we would see, the affliction rules talk about saving per round to move up or down a stage, but not how to deal with multiple doses of poison, that I could find. Of course I was trying to flip between the Bestiary, the afflictions page, and the specific poisons page, so I may well just have been flipping at the wrong point. (I really feel like the Bestiary needs to include things like specific poison/disease etc effects in it [though of course not the rules to run them per se]--I should not have to be flipping constantly between two books to figure out how a very basic monster ability works.)

All I can say is we probably should have had a TPK and didn't because we probably adjudicated the poison wrong. Well, that and the party withdrew and then the centipedes crit failed vs the sorcerer's burning hands spell, but that was just luck.

Page 325 Under heading Multiple Exposures

"Multiple exposures to the same affliction have no effect if it’s a curse or disease. However, for a poison, failing the initial saving throw against a new dose increases the stage by 1 (or by 2 if you critically fail) without affecting the maximum duration. This is true even if you’re within the poison’s onset period, though it doesn’t change the length of the onset period."

My understanding is basically multiple poison doses escalates the stage track without having to wait for the interval period but don't make the character immediately suffer the effect.

So in this case it seems like multiple poison doses could push the character to stage 2, but they wouldn't take poison damage again until the interval comes up for them to roll a fortitude save.

[DeathQuaker]

Thank you! I was already flipping between the module, the Bestiary, and pages 324 and 365 in the rulebook, and somehow missed the sidebar on the following page in the Afflictions section.

[AWroe]

GreatCowGuru wrote:

Page 325 Under heading Multiple Exposures

"Multiple exposures to the same affliction have no effect if it’s a curse or disease. However, for a poison, failing the initial saving throw against a new dose increases the stage by 1 (or by 2 if you critically fail) without affecting the maximum duration. This is true even if you’re within the poison’s onset period, though it doesn’t change the length of the onset...

My understanding is basically multiple poison doses escalates the stage track without having to wait for the interval period but don't make the character immediately suffer the effect.

Page 325 under the heading Stages wrote:

An affliction typically has multiple stages, each of which lists an effect followed by an interval in parentheses. When you reach a given stage of an affliction, you are subjected to the effects listed for that stage.

We read the last sentence as stating the effects of the new stage occur immediately *in addition* to the stage going up, as you've 'reached' the given stage. The multiple exposures text doesn't seem to state that you don't suffer the effects of reaching the stage, just that the maximum duration or onset doesn't get reset.

[GreatCowGuru]

AWroe wrote:

GreatCowGuru wrote:

Page 325 Under heading Multiple Exposures

"Multiple exposures to the same affliction have no effect if it’s a curse or disease. However, for a poison, failing the initial saving throw against a new dose increases the stage by 1 (or by 2 if you critically fail) without affecting the maximum duration. This is true even if you’re within the poison’s onset period, though it doesn’t change the length of the onset...

My understanding is basically multiple poison doses escalates the stage track without having to wait for the interval period but don't make the character immediately suffer the effect.

Page 325 under the heading Stages wrote:

An affliction typically has multiple stages, each of which lists an effect followed by an interval in parentheses. When you reach a given stage of an affliction, you are subjected to the effects listed for that stage.

We read the last sentence as stating the effects of the new stage occur immediately *in addition* to the stage going up, as you've 'reached' the given stage. The multiple exposures text doesn't seem to state that you don't suffer the effects of reaching the stage, just that the maximum duration or onset doesn't get reset.

I've been debating exactly whether that is the case or not honestly the reason I said that I don't believe it would is the sentence referring to the onset period. You don't take suffer the effects of the affliction until after the onset period so at the very least in that case it raises the stage without suffering the new stage. That led me to think well maybe the same is true for the afflictions interval and you don't take the effects of the new stage until you hit the next interval. This is one of those things that really needs some clarifying. Also in your case how did you rule it if they were already at max stage and failed the multiple exposure check?