Communal delay poison

[Agodeshalf]

So two questions regarding communal delay poison

1) I'm currently playing a shaman and we have a need for delay poison, and so I looked on my spell list and saw that while I have delay poison, I do not have communal. I'm curious if this is just a oversight or do people think it was intentionally omitted. The other spell caster that has the communal version dropped is the oracle. While the shaman is a blend of oracle, they are also part witch and witches get the communal version. Just seems odd and was wonder what folks thought - intended omission or mistake?

2) This question is more about the mechanics of delay poison. I did some searches looking for comments about the communal version and saw post about how delay poison works that were not how I thought it worked. I believe that if I cast delay poison on someone 2 things happen. The target is 1) temporarily immune to any *new* exposures to poisons, and 2) any current poison effects are suspended till the spell wears off. But I saw many comments that implied that at each exposure, you need to make the saving throws, and while the consequences of that is deferred, the DC and duration can rise as with any repeat exposures to a given toxin. The spell is worded oddly in that it starts with "you are temporarily immune", and then goes on to talk about current poisons, and new exposures. My take on it is that delay poison makes you immune to any new instance of being poisoned, and that at the end of the spell, only poisons in your system before you had delay poison cast resume harming you.

How does the spell work? Is there consensus?

[avr]

Shamans get a relatively short spell list and multiple means of expanding it. That's their niche, they build their own spell list just about. So not an oversight IMO.

Delay poison delays poisons. It doesn't neutralise them, that's another spell.

[Pizza Lord]

The target does not roll any saves against the poison or even know how many saves they will have until the spell ends (they can guess, based on how many times they were bitten or something).

When the spell wears off, then they make their saves (and any they fail will increase stacking with the next failures). This does make for a potential avalanche of saves (if you were repeatedly poisoned). But it also allow you to drink antitoxin, get tended by Heal (which doesn't usually happen in combat), or otherwise buff your saves or remove all the poison at once with neutralize poison just as delay poison wears off.

[Agodeshalf]

Thanks. I can see how delay poison can be read that way, and in fact, it is pretty clear that that was the intent. It seems a bit of a death trap/desperate spell. Depending on the situation, you can have DC and duration that have escalated to fatal levels. We are faced with a lot of highly poisonous spiders and I have few neutralize poisons to recover folks before the delay poison expires making it a risky approach.

I still think that the lack of communal delay poison is a mistake. It's on the witches list and it seems in line with the skills of a shaman.

Thanks again for the input.