Neutralize Poison

[Joey Cote]

Our group just finished the 4th section of Coundown and we ran into what felt like a huge problem.

One of the creatures had a fairly powerful poison. One of the characters cast neutralize poison. Then we tried to figure out the level of the poison and basically just decided it must be half the monster's level+1 as if it was a spell, which made it a 5th level poison. Which gave neutralize poison a -10 to remove this effect using the relevant skill, which we assumed was spellcasting.

So on to new table 10-2. Now, the GM has to make a call here as to easy to ultimate for the difficulty. Considering the creature, medium or hard would probably be correct, but lets just say the GM was kind and decided medium. That would make the target 31. So the character is 7th, which means at best they are rolling 7+4 plus the d20. Which means the character needs to roll a 20. Pretty much an autofail on a 3rd level spell.

Removing poisons is literally the only thing this spell does, and only to one player. And this is a 3rd level spell. Using medicine is literally more effective (since it won't have the built in -10 in this example) then a magic spell that only intended effect is to get rid of poison!

Dispel magic is done the same way, but is vastly more effective since there are a lot of lower level effects that opponents can have on them that are very difficult to deal with, such as mirror image and invisibility as examples. Heightening dispel is something casters are going to do frequently specifically because as you deal with higher level opponents you know you are going to end up facing powerful spells that you will want to remove.

Against low level opponents, the opponent's poison generally is only going to be a minor annoyance to players, and is easily remedied after the fight. Especially with the new rules for out of combat healing. What Neutralize Poison needs to deal with is more powerful poisons.

Heightening it to the highest level a caster can use is a fairly bad option since the character will only have two such spells, and without some form of knowledge about the opponents before spell preparation these could actually be "dead" spells in MTG terms. Even worse, if the spell's level isn't higher then the ability (which against higher level monsters (I will use the term "boss" after this for simplicity) is will never be) then you have to use table 9-3. So lets say a group of lvl 11 characters fights a level 13 monster (Boss). Someone gets poisoned, caster has neutralize poison memorized at his highest spell level (6th), which is lower then the boss's lvl 7 poison. So we look at table 9-3, and notice something. The table doesn't scale linearally. So the level 6 Neutralize poison, against a poison that is at least the same level or (in this example +1) has a -15/-20 to the check because it has a counteract of 3. Which means going to table 10-2, assuming a medium difficulty, the target to remove this creature's poison, using a max level spell, is 45. Character would have a 11(class level, I don't see any casters getting expert until 12) +5(stat maxed) total 16 trying to hit a target of 45.

Maybe I am missing items that give a bonus, but I don't see many spells/powers that effect this, and even then its a small bonus. That is insane! The caster has almost no chance blowing their highest level spell!

Either our group is completely misunderstanding this process, this is broken, or the game developers intended for characters to absolutely not be able to remove higher level effects.

[Dragonriderje]

A Neutralize Poison heightened to a 6th level spell has a counteract level of 6.

Rulebook pg.319 wrote:

A spell’s counteract level is equal to its spell level

And you were right about the monster's counteract level. There's a table on pg 320 for that as well.

The DC for the counteract should be the DC of the poison

Quote:

If your ability’s counteract level is the same as the effect’s counteract level or lower, you must succeed at a check using the relevant skill or ability against the DC of the target effect.

So I assume it uses the DC listed to resist the poison or would use the DC to save against the spell. If you don't have any of those numbers, and need a DC for a monster, you use the Hard/High DC for that monster's level.

So it'd be a spell roll vs the monster's DC.

Your point still stands though about how it seems like to even have a CHANCE to counteract, you have to use half of your spell slots for your most powerful spell level, which feels really bad. Especially since a boss monster is probably 2+ levels above the party.

[Draco18s]

Dragonriderje wrote:

Your point still stands though about how it seems like to even have a CHANCE to counteract

This is why I hate the counteract / counterspell rules. :\

[Deadmanwalking]

Channeled Succor neatly solves this problem for a Cleric (though it's not much help to anyone else), and Affliction Mercy can be similarly helpful to a Paladin (especially combined with Greater Mercy).

For diseases and other long-term effects it's also perfectly sufficient to prepare a spell and fix the issue the next day (or pick it as your Spontaneous Heighten). Poisons, however, are another matter and a better solution for them might well be warranted. You can carry Scrolls, but that does get a tad expensive...

[Dragonriderje]

It makes Antidotes more attractive, I suppose...

[DM_aka_Dudemeister]

When our players faced the Sea Serpent in Part 4 it had a poison effect, the counteract level is 12 (= monster level), if our druid prepared neutralize poison in her highest slot (5th level), as written that spell would do nothing. Not even allow a roll, because 12-5 = 7.

7 is greater than 4.

The effect automatically fails.

I understand that the Sea Serpent is supposed to be one of the hardest encounters, but once again it shows that if players try to ever do something brave and heroic, trying to face a terrible foe, the rules will straight up shut down their interaction whole-cloth.

Afflictions should have a level equal to half the monster level, or counteract effects should have a counteract level equal to double the spell level. Otherwise the math is just completely borked when you fight bosses.

[Fuzzypaws]

DM_aka_Dudemeister wrote:

When our players faced the Sea Serpent in Part 4 it had a poison effect, the counteract level is 12 (= monster level), if our druid prepared neutralize poison in her highest slot (5th level), as written that spell would do nothing. Not even allow a roll, because 12-5 = 7.

7 is greater than 4.

The effect automatically fails.

I understand that the Sea Serpent is supposed to be one of the hardest encounters, but once again it shows that if players try to ever do something brave and heroic, trying to face a terrible foe, the rules will straight up shut down their interaction whole-cloth.

Afflictions should have a level equal to half the monster level, or counteract effects should have a counteract level equal to double the spell level. Otherwise the math is just completely borked when you fight bosses.

The counteract level for a monster IS half its level. So for the sea serpent, it's 6. That is still too high for PCs to realistically succeed the way Neutralize currently works, but at least it's technically a chance.

[The Archive]

Aside from the headache I find these rules to be in general, at very, very least either the condition removal spells or the counteract conditions rules need to actually list what to roll. There is no reason for the spells to not say something like "Roll caster level for your counteract check." Or alternatively (or perhaps in addition too), maybe have some examples in the counteract rules? While medicine is certainly an easy assumption for poison and disease, there's other stuff out there!

I really don't like that there's two places in the rules that lack specificity that would make the rules either actually work (Recall Knowledge) or make handling those rules easier (Counteracting). I really hope this isn't a design trend. This doesn't even give power to the GM (or something), it just gives them more and unnecessary work.