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Page 235 is the last page of the Equipment Chapter. It states that "A player character can create all the items presented in this chapter as long as he has the skills, materials, tools, and time needed to construct it."
We're then told which skills are used to create which items. I have a Biohacker that wants to craft poisons. "For drugs, medicinals, and poisons, the skill can be either Life Science or Physical Science."
You're not saving money by crafting, but the last paragraph tells us "Custom-built equipment has a few advantages over mass produced items." Alright, sweet. What are they?
"When determining the hardness, Hit Points, and saving throws of an item you have crafted, treat its item level as if it were 2 higher." Cool! So now I just need to figure out what that means for poison DCs...
...and I can't find anything.
Going by example, initially I thought you could deconstruct the other poisons. Hyperleaf is Level 1 and DC 12. Id moss is Level 2 and DC 14. A DC of 10+(lvlx2) was beginning to make sense, until I checked everything and found the math to be inconsistent.
Does anyone know of any Developer comments on the matter? I can't find that this question has been asked in this Forum. At this point it doesn't seem that crafting poisons gives you any benefit other than another use for UPBs.
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Well, there's the benefit if you're out in the middle of nowhere and have no one to buy them from. But there should be no statistical difference between your crafted poison and purchased poison.
Crafted items increase saving throws of the item, not save DCs of the item.
I don't know of any official answer, but I would use the ability DC entry of the NPC creation tables item level = CR for poison DCs.
They don't match up to the CRB, but it should be good enough. They're off by 1-3 depending on which table your look at (combatant, expert, spellcaster)
That should make poisons somewhat useful, but not stupidly over powered, but it probably needs play testing.
Edit: Purely a house rule of course.
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I would use the ability DC entry of the NPC creation tables item level = CR for poison DCs.
Oh that's a good suggestion. DCs do seem to cap out at Item Level 20, DC 20.
The suggestion I was going to give my GM was +1 per two Levels, so just +1 for crafted Poisons.
This is for a homegame character and not Society, but getting a Society answer would be nice, too. That is the majority of my play.
If I may offer some advice for this particular idea, please consider the following.
Enemy saving throws grow at a much faster pace than player saving throws. By CR 10, even the worst enemies have a Fort save of +9. The best you can buy or craft at this time is Ungol Dust. If your GM allowed that a crafted poison gave +2 to the save DC, even the enemies with the worst Fort saving throw would save 60% of the time.
My greatest concern for you as a player is the dissatisfaction you may feel when the GM saves against your poisons almost every roll. I've been down that road myself and my GM was kind enough to allow me to make some alterations.
I am not telling you that you shouldn't. Just be aware that static DC's are quite terrible in Starfinder and do not scale at all.
Be sure to have some fallback plans in case this one becomes unsatisfying. Personally, if I were your GM I would change the DC for your poisons to be 10 + Biohacker level + stat modifier (based on which track the modifier used). This way, you have a fair or better than fair chance of your poisons sticking around long enough to be meaningful.
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"When determining the hardness, Hit Points, and saving throws of an item you have crafted, treat its item level as if it were 2 higher." Cool! So now I just need to figure out what that means for poison DCs......and I can't find anything.
Going by example, initially I thought you could deconstruct the other poisons. Hyperleaf is Level 1 and DC 12. Id moss is Level 2 and DC 14. A DC of 10+(lvlx2) was beginning to make sense, until I checked everything and found the math to be inconsistent.
Does anyone know of any Developer comments on the matter? I can't find that this question has been asked in this Forum. At this point it doesn't seem that crafting poisons gives you any benefit other than another use for UPBs.
I thought that referred to saving throws the item itself makes when exposed to an effect that requires objects to make a saving throw. See page 409, upper right labeled "Saving throws". An object's saving throw bonus for Fortitude, Reflex, and Will saving throws is equal to the object's caster level or item level. Raising the item's level for saving throws makes sense in that context.
So it's not for offensive uses, or saving throws caused by the item, but rather keeping the item intact.
This is for a homegame character and not Society, but getting a Society answer would be nice, too. That is the majority of my play.
Unfortunately for society play I believe Hiruma Kai is correct. The DCs are as listed in core, the only poisons available are core, and the item's own saving throws are treated as if it's level was 2 higher.