I have been in discussion of using the spell Invigorating Poison.
Some people have suggested that the spell can be used as a pretty potent buff, by inflicting oneself with a multi stat poison for some beefy and cheap bonuses. The spell states that the poison has to actually inflict the ability damage, for the spell's abilities to be triggered.
The RAW in the core rulebook about voluntarily failing a saving throw only specifically mentions 'spells'. Otherwise, nothing is mentioned for things such as alchemical items or poisons etc.
From a realistic GM interpretation, I would say that you cannot voluntarily fail a fortitude save against such things. After all, it is the innate nature of your body and it's immune system that are fighting off the poison and most certainly not a willing decision of a character. If i get infected exposed to a titer of Tuberculosis, it is not really a conscious decision of mine to fight it off or succumb to infection.
While the effect still could work, you'd have to actually "fail" the save. In which a pass would result in a wasted dose of poison and a wasted action. Now there are many ways in which you could increase the chances of failure significantly, but it would mean lowering your Fortitude save and or misfortune effects etc.
Because the spell has a low minutes duration, it isn't viable for an out of combat plan either
Does anybody know of an official RAW ruling on this?
The saving throw section in the Magic chapter is the only thing we have to go on when looking for the rules for saving throws in general. While it refers to spells frequently, one must assume that it works the same for non-spell effects--or else there is simply no way to adjudicate such effects. Since voluntarily failing a saving throw is part of said rules section, I wouldn't treat it any differently than, say, the rule in the same section that desscribes how to adjudicate "negates", or the rule in the same section declaring that a natural 1/20 automatically fails/succeeds.
TL;DR: Yes, you can voluntarily fail any saving throw. Fortunately, that still makes invigorating poison pretty terrible, as you risk ability damage every time you use it since nearly all poisons that do ability damage do so recurrently and invigorating poison only protects against a single instance of ability damage from a single poison.
True, blahpers.
It seems it doesn't give any protection against the extended effects of a poison. The first failed save gives a bonus rather then a penalty. Then you have to save again. But seeing as many poisons have rather weak save DCs, it's not that scary even if you need to make them later to avoid the penalties.
TL;DR: Yes, you can voluntarily fail any saving throw. Fortunately, that still makes invigorating poison pretty terrible, as you risk ability damage every time you use it since nearly all poisons that do ability damage do so recurrently and invigorating poison only protects against a single instance of ability damage from a single poison.
So... say that you have a poison that deals 1 point of ability damage to physical all physical ability scores each round for 6 rounds. (I don't know all the poison effects, maybe its bought, found, harvested from a monster, or custom created, etc). But the poison's DC is idk, lets say 11 (they are usually terribly low).
A 2nd level druid could cast this on their animal companion, then an ally could inject the poison into it. The companion could voluntarily fail the initial absurdly low DC.
Not only would that initial ability damage not even happen, but the bear companion now gets +4 alchemical bonus to STR, DEX, & CON (which stacks with enhancements and other bonuses and further boosts it's con save) for 1 minute!
Then the bear companion could choose to actually make the recurring save the next round and end the poison's effect. All without even taking it's own action yet.
Shorter duration, but a far more powerful effect than even an anchemist's default mutagen... And there's no alchemist involved.
The use of this reasoning seems to be more of an abuse of RAW or more specifically lack there of, and contrary to reasonable realism and reasonable mechanics. Like... Does the bear really get to choose when and when not it's body's immune system fights off a poison...?
Does the fact that there is no specific rule prohibiting something mean that it is allowed? How do we draw the line?
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Eh? You have to spend resources to get the poison, resources to cast the spell, and resources to deal with the subsequent ability damage that you would otherwise take.
That's a decent amount of investment in order to make it work.
Basically, it's a bull's strength with triple the requirements in return for potentially applying to more than one stat and getting a step upgrade on duration.
And it'll be limited by what poisons are available to you, leaving an in-game gm lever to adjust the potency if it ends up being too strong.
Seems fine to me.
if you have a save you want to fail use enter image spell. while your in an image you autoaticly fail all saves. you will probebly need some1 else to appply the poison to you. (altouh if the image is 3d like a statue you can move it,but not attack with it)
TL;DR: Yes, you can voluntarily fail any saving throw. Fortunately, that still makes invigorating poison pretty terrible, as you risk ability damage every time you use it since nearly all poisons that do ability damage do so recurrently and invigorating poison only protects against a single instance of ability damage from a single poison.So... say that you have a poison that deals 1 point of ability damage to physical all physical ability scores each round for 6 rounds. (I don't know all the poison effects, maybe its bought, found, harvested from a monster, or custom created, etc). But the poison's DC is idk, lets say 11 (they are usually terribly low).
A 2nd level druid could cast this on their animal companion, then an ally could inject the poison into it. The companion could voluntarily fail the initial absurdly low DC.
Not only would that initial ability damage not even happen, but the bear companion now gets +4 alchemical bonus to STR, DEX, & CON (which stacks with enhancements and other bonuses and further boosts it's con save) for 1 minute!
Then the bear companion could choose to actually make the recurring save the next round and end the poison's effect. All without even taking it's own action yet.
Shorter duration, but a far more powerful effect than even an anchemist's default mutagen... And there's no alchemist involved.
The use of this reasoning seems to be more of an abuse of RAW or more specifically lack there of, and contrary to reasonable realism and reasonable mechanics. Like... Does the bear really get to choose when and when not it's body's immune system fights off a poison...?
1. If the bear rolls a 1 on the subsequent round, it's stuck with three kinds of ability damage in exchange for a one minute boost.
2. The poison you describe doesn't exist AFAIK, and there are no rules for creating custom poisons. For that matter, many published poisons are hard to come by in the first place.
There's no crisis here.
Does the fact that there is no specific rule prohibiting something mean that it is allowed?
GMs prohibit things all the time without specific rules prohibiting said things.
Yes, you can voluntarily fail a save.
One of my characters once tanglefoot bagged myself while climbing, voluntarily failing the save in order to stay in that spot and free up both hands for a short period. It seemed pretty reasonable at the time.
A real world example might be the person that tests insect repellent by spraying it on their arm then inserting their arm into a chamber filled with insects, essentially letting the bugs bite them if the product is a failure.
Failing the save on a poison in order to benefit from Invigorating Poison is most certainly a thing. However, you've failed the first save, so you must save again on the second round, and possibly beyond, with failure rewarding you with the poisons effect.