I am quite sure about how stoneskin works, but just to avoid any misunderstanding: the ranger has stoneskin on him. The devil rolled a natural 20 and dealt 37hp, 10 ignored and 27 absorbed. It was a bite, which also hits the affected creature with poison and sickness. Do poison and sickness pass the protection being a nat 20 or it prevents the ranger from being sickened and poisoned?
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I am quite sure about how stoneskin works, but just to avoid any misunderstanding: the ranger has stoneskin on him. The devil rolled a natural 20 and dealt 37hp, 10 ignored and 27 absorbed.
Correct
It was a bite, which also hits the affected creature with poison and sickness. Does poison and sickness pass the protection being a nat 20 or it prevents the ranger from being sickened and poisoned?
Yes the Ranger is affected by the poison and must maks a save.
If the attack had done no damage (eg. the attack did 9 damage but Stoneskin reduced it to 0) then the Ranger would not be affected by the poison.
The Nat-20 is not directly related to the poison taking effect, it's about whether the attack does damage.
Thank you. So the ranger's dead :(
Thank you. So the ranger's dead :(
:(
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Not necessarily dead. As Mr Charisma noted, there is probably a save. And the poison may not be automatically lethal even on a failed save. Foe example, Here’s the pit fiend’s poison bite description:
Poison (Ex) Bite—injury; save Fort DC 32; frequency 1/round for 10 rounds; effect 1d6 Con damage; cure 3 consecutive saves. The save DC is Constitution-based.
Actually DC32 is pretty high. Once you fail the first ST your Con and Fortitude Bonuses go down and passing the following ST is even harder.
He had +15 at Fort ST but rolled a 6, losing 5 Con points....
DC:32 IS high. What level are you?
Remember a Delay Poison effect might be enough to save you till you can get the CON restored.
Also a Nat-20 is an auto-success on saves. It's not much but any effect that lets you roll twice and pick the higher almost doubles your chance at that Nat-20.
They are at 8th level and the poison is exactly the one that Ferka's written down. The ranger's failed 3 TS in 3 consecutive rounds, lowering his Con from 19 to 7 (also good rolls by DM - me). He's just made it through blowing the final strike to the Devil and failed the fourth...None of his companions has anything against poison, since they prepared all their spells to face and deal damage to the powerful enemy.
He'll either be raised from the dead or remembered as a hero :p
Poison (Ex) Bite—injury; save Fort DC 32; frequency 1/round for 10 rounds; effect 1d6 Con damage; cure 3 consecutive saves. The save DC is Constitution-based.
So just to put this in perspective, my level 11 Bloodrager has a rediculously high Fort-Save, +18 while Raging. This would give him ~27% chance of getting through that poison with no CON damage. He's 3 levels higher than your Ranger, and his Fort-Save is high enough that he passes nearly all level-appropriate fort-saves on a Nat-2.
A DC:32 Fort-Save for a level 8 character usually means they'll need a Nat-20 to succeed, so with 3 consecutive saves that's ~1/8,000 (~0.0125%) chance of curing it.
Your Ranger had a +15 Fort-Save, but even then he needs a 17 to save, which is a 20% chance to save once, or a 0.8% chance to get the 3 successes needed for a cure. As soon as he failed once he drops down to the ~0.0125% chance that everyine else is on.
In my honest opinion this poison shouldn't have been in the game at this point - not without some free Antitoxins, maybe a Scroll and a huge pre-warning that the party was about to need some anti-poison measures.
I would definitely change this. If you don't want to ret-con anything I can think of 2 easy solutions that still leave the character in dire straits:
1. The poison only needs 1 save. This means his chance of survival is no longer less than 0.1%. It's still only about 5%, but it's something.
2. The Poison can reduce you to 1 CON but won't kill you. This means he's still very fragile and could possibly still die in the combat. Even if they win they still have to find a way to restore 18 CON, so it's having somewhat lasting consequences for the party.
I would be inclined to implement both of those options if you want to give him any chance of surviving (or even just ret-conning the poison's Save DC to be ~10 points lower).
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Actually DC32 is pretty high. Once you fail the first ST your Con and Fortitude Bonuses go down and passing the following ST is even harder.
He had +15 at Fort ST but rolled a 6, losing 5 Con points....The ranger's failed 3 TS in 3 consecutive rounds, lowering his Con from 19 to 7 (also good rolls by DM - me).
Are you sure you applied the rules correctly?
Unlike the more powerful "Ability Drain" power, the lesser "Ability Damage" does not actually "lower" your ability score.
Ability Damage merely adds a penalty to all statistics linked to the ability, i.e. as if your ability modifier was lowered by 1; the ability penalty is -1 for every full 2 points of Ability Damage, so the first roll of 5 points CON Damage only applied a -2 penalty [from the 4 points Ability Damage, the 5th point did nothing yet]. Ability Drain would have given a -3 penalty in this case, because it would have lowered the 19 CON to 14 CON, but Ability Damage ignores your actual ability score.
This means he probably had a +1 more CON during the fight.
And unless the Ability Damage to Constitution is greater than the Constitution score itself, you do not die from Constitution damage.
The Constitution damage also has no effect on the maximum negative hit points a character can have before he is dead. So the Ranger wouldn't die from hit point damage unless he is at or below -19 HP.
Rules: Ability Score Damage, Penalty, and Drain
p.s.: Delay Poison is a 2nd-level spell, that is super powerful!
In my honest opinion ..... huge pre-warning that the party was about to need some anti-poison measures.
Here I failed, maybe, so it's up to me to make the consequences less heavy.
1. The poison only needs 1 save. This means his chance of survival is no longer less than 0.1%. It's still only about 5%, but it's something.
2. The Poison can reduce you to 1 CON but won't kill you. This means he's still very fragile and could possibly still die in the combat. Even if they win they still have to find a way to restore 18 CON, so it's having somewhat lasting consequences for the party.
I would be inclined to implement both of those options if you want to give him any chance of surviving (or even just ret-conning the poison's Save DC to be ~10 points lower).
It's impossible that the ranger rolls even one good ST, because he failed the first, second and third one. So I think point 2 is the best they can get: the combat is over and they just have to get out of the dungeon, they will need a restore scroll and something to take care of sickness too.
Thanks for your advice.
Actually DC32 is pretty high. Once you fail the first ST your Con and Fortitude Bonuses go down and passing the following ST is even harder.
He had +15 at Fort ST but rolled a 6, losing 5 Con points....The ranger's failed 3 TS in 3 consecutive rounds, lowering his Con from 19 to 7 (also good rolls by DM - me).
Are you sure you applied the rules correctly?
Unlike the more powerful "Ability Drain" power, the lesser "Ability Damage" does not actually "lower" your ability score.
Ability Damage merely adds a penalty to all statistics linked to the ability, i.e. as if your ability modifier was lowered by 1; the ability penalty is -1 for every full 2 points of Ability Damage, so the first roll of 5 points CON Damage only applied a -2 penalty [from the 4 points Ability Damage, the 5th point did nothing yet]. Ability Drain would have given a -3 penalty in this case, because it would have lowered the 19 CON to 14 CON, but Ability Damage ignores your actual ability score.
This means he probably had a +1 more CON during the fight.
And unless the Ability Damage to Constitution is greater than the Constitution score itself, you do not die from Constitution damage.
The Constitution damage also has no effect on the maximum negative hit points a character can have before he is dead. So the Ranger wouldn't die from hit point damage unless he is at or below -19 HP.
Rules: Ability Score Damage, Penalty, and Drain
p.s.: Delay Poison is a 2nd-level spell, that is super powerful!
I'll take a better look to the Devil's poison page, thanks.
Rules: Ability Score Damage, Penalty, and Drain
p.s.: Delay Poison is a 2nd-level spell, that is super powerful!
the last part is missing:
Constitution: Damage to your Constitution score causes you to take penalties on your Fortitude saving throws. In addition, multiply your total Hit Dice by this penalty and subtract that amount from your current and total hit points. Lost hit points are restored when the damage to your Constitution is healed. A character with a Constitution score of 0 is dead.Obviously I counted -1 on Fort Save for each 2 points Con Damage, yet it makes DC32 out of reach
Actually DC32 is pretty high. Once you fail the first ST your Con and Fortitude Bonuses go down and passing the following ST is even harder.
He had +15 at Fort ST but rolled a 6, losing 5 Con points....The ranger's failed 3 TS in 3 consecutive rounds, lowering his Con from 19 to 7 (also good rolls by DM - me).
Are you sure you applied the rules correctly?
Unlike the more powerful "Ability Drain" power, the lesser "Ability Damage" does not actually "lower" your ability score.
Ability Damage merely adds a penalty to all statistics linked to the ability, i.e. as if your ability modifier was lowered by 1; the ability penalty is -1 for every full 2 points of Ability Damage, so the first roll of 5 points CON Damage only applied a -2 penalty [from the 4 points Ability Damage, the 5th point did nothing yet]. Ability Drain would have given a -3 penalty in this case, because it would have lowered the 19 CON to 14 CON, but Ability Damage ignores your actual ability score.
This means he probably had a +1 more CON during the fight.
And unless the Ability Damage to Constitution is greater than the Constitution score itself, you do not die from Constitution damage.
The Constitution damage also has no effect on the maximum negative hit points a character can have before he is dead. So the Ranger wouldn't die from hit point damage unless he is at or below -19 HP.
Rules: Ability Score Damage, Penalty, and Drain
p.s.: Delay Poison is a 2nd-level spell, that is super powerful!
All true, but I can't imagine a +1 to his saves would have made a difference in this example; -3 or -4, either way he needs a Nat20. And the poison is definitely going to damage his Con below the Con score at 10 saves, since he has 7 saves to go and only 7 Con remaining. People do frequently miss that the penalties only apply for every 2 damage though, regardless of whether the score is odd or even.
Let me get this straight, an 8th level party is fighting a pit fiend, CR 20...
If this is homebrew, well, their (the players and the DM) game their business.
** spoiler omitted **
The game is not homebrew, I'm running The Council of Thieves and they've just met Liebdaga the Twin, weakened pit fiend (CR12)
To be fair, the party was well prepared, the Devil was able to hit the ranger twice. Rolling 6x4=24 attacks against AC33. One of those attacks was a nat-20 bite.
If you follow the normal poison DC calculation, given in my post above, the effect on the DC is much the same:
DC = 10 + 7 (con) + 7 (13 HD) = 24Whether this saves your PC, is up to you.
I check this out at once. Maybe the second or the third roll could save him.
edit: his 4th roll was a 18, which actually is a success
so Liebdaga only attacks once every 3 rounds based on his "Strategy", they spent 12 rounds in combat with him and every time it attacked the ranger? Is the ranger the only tank?
It sounds like the combat is over, so checking the tactics is a good learning experience but it won't change anything for now.
I'd say change it so that the Ranger only needs 1 success to cure, and since the 4th save was a success (in retrospect) he's now cured.
The party has defeated the Demon but the Ranger took heavy penalties, and the party must now exit the dungeon and find a way to cure the CON damage.
How does that sound?
so Liebdaga only attacks once every 3 rounds based on his "Strategy", they spent 12 rounds in combat with him and every time it attacked the ranger? Is the ranger the only tank?
Liebdaga makes 1 full attack then is staggered for one round. He also attacked and almost killed the other fighter, whose AC was "only" 31. During one of those staggering rounds he walked away from the fight to get some healing and the Devil turned to the ranger, passed his AC twice, with a claw and with the bite, poisoning him with his last attack, then died.
It sounds like the combat is over, so checking the tactics is a good learning experience but it won't change anything for now.
I'd say change it so that the Ranger only needs 1 success to cure, and since the 4th save was a success (in retrospect) he's now cured.
The party has defeated the Demon but the Ranger took heavy penalties, and the party must now exit the dungeon and find a way to cure the CON damage.
How does that sound?
This is how I worked it out, based on your suggestion: he went to 1 Con and blacked out; the poison is still in his body and Restore is useless until they remove it (they have Detect Poison so it isn't a problem). They also know he can be sickened, so I guess they remove the sickeness as well. Their main problem is taking his body out of the dungeon (a weight issue, since the dungeon has been cleared).
I'm glad this has been cleared up; when I was reading on my phone yesterday, I was very confused as to why a level 8 Ranger was facing something with DC 32 poinson....
_
glass.
the DC32 was my mistake, yet DC24 was way to high for his poor poor poor dice rolls.
This is how I worked it out, based on your suggestion: he went to 1 Con and blacked out; the poison is still in his body and Restore is useless until they remove it (they have Detect Poison so it isn't a problem). They also know he can be sickened, so I guess they remove the sickeness as well. Their main problem is taking his body out of the dungeon (a weight issue, since the dungeon has been cleared).It sounds like the combat is over, so checking the tactics is a good learning experience but it won't change anything for now.
I'd say change it so that the Ranger only needs 1 success to cure, and since the 4th save was a success (in retrospect) he's now cured.
The party has defeated the Demon but the Ranger took heavy penalties, and the party must now exit the dungeon and find a way to cure the CON damage.
How does that sound?
At CON 1, he can be conscious and walk himself out. Stat damage will heal at a rate of 1 point per day.
The Ranger can technically continue to adventure, just be sure to avoid getting hit.
This is how I worked it out, based on your suggestion: he went to 1 Con and blacked out; the poison is still in his body and Restore is useless until they remove it (they have Detect Poison so it isn't a problem). They also know he can be sickened, so I guess they remove the sickeness as well. Their main problem is taking his body out of the dungeon (a weight issue, since the dungeon has been cleared).It sounds like the combat is over, so checking the tactics is a good learning experience but it won't change anything for now.
I'd say change it so that the Ranger only needs 1 success to cure, and since the 4th save was a success (in retrospect) he's now cured.
The party has defeated the Demon but the Ranger took heavy penalties, and the party must now exit the dungeon and find a way to cure the CON damage.
How does that sound?
At CON 1, he can be conscious and walk himself out. Stat damage will heal at a rate of 1 point per day.
The Ranger can technically continue to adventure, just be sure to avoid getting hit.
He'd be actually dead, but since the players don't know how the poison works and raising him would be a loss of time and money for the group, I told the ranger's player that he's 1 Con and unconscious. I'm just making the outcome of the fight less costly.