Animal Poisons (3.5)

[JellyPooga]

To put it bluntly; why do they suck?

For example; a Medium Vipers poison has a DC of 11. 11?!? Even Average-McAverage-Pants the Commoner resists that half the time.

There's barely even scope to increase that without increasing size as well (in fact, the only way I know of to do so, short of magical items, is for it to be an Animal Companion and/or Familiar or to substitute it's Weapon Finesse, thus being totally incapable of hitting anything, for Ability Focus, which even then only puts it up to 13).

Whatever happened to venomous snake-bites that practically guarantee death without almost immediate aid in the form of anti-venom or amputation? I'm no expert on snakes, but I'm pretty sure that when talking about venomous snakes, they range from "Oh dear, I'd better get that seen to" to "Oh god I've been bi-...urk!" and a flat DC:11 just doesn't give me that kind of impression.

[Quietus]

To put it bluntly; why do they suck?

For example; a Medium Vipers poison has a DC of 11. 11?!? Even Average-McAverage-Pants the Commoner resists that half the time.

There's barely even scope to increase that without increasing size as well (in fact, the only way I know of to do so, short of magical items, is for it to be an Animal Companion and/or Familiar or to substitute it's Weapon Finesse, thus being totally incapable of hitting anything, for Ability Focus, which even then only puts it up to 13).

Whatever happened to venomous snake-bites that practically guarantee death without almost immediate aid in the form of anti-venom or amputation? I'm no expert on snakes, but I'm pretty sure that when talking about venomous snakes, they range from "Oh dear, I'd better get that seen to" to "Oh god I've been bi-...urk!" and a flat DC:11 just doesn't give me that kind of impression.

The basic viper isn't intended to represent that super-virulent type of snake. If you wanted to do that, you could give it a bonus feat of Ability Focus, and Virulent Poison (+2 to poison DC, savage species, stacks with Ability Focus), to bring it to DC 15. Remember this is two saves against DC 15, each for 1d6 con; Your average commoner McPantsGotBit is more likely than not to fail that, and 1d6 con is pretty significant, particularly a minute later when they take another 1d6.


Beyond this, increasing its con (through size or otherwise), and its hit dice, will also increase the DC of it's poison. Though if you're going for a truly lethal sort of snake, I'd look for alternate snake stats somewhere.

[Kol Korran]

[QUOTE=JellyPooga;6355302]To put it bluntly; why do they suck?
Whatever happened to venomous snake-bites that practically guarantee death without almost immediate aid in the form of anti-venom or amputation? QUOTE]

um, not sure, but i just think they are no fun? for that question, what happened to bleeding, or dying when you get stabbed by a sword once or twice tops, or fire being more of a 1d6 nusiance?

the game isn't realistic, it's not supposed to be. if a character dies, it had better be from a realy savage monster, dark spell, or if speaking about posion- a poison of a realy terrifying beasty. snakes don't feel quite as dangerous in a world with dragons, medusas, purple worms, and whatever.

but you could always make it more realistic for your game, nothing wrong with that...

Kol.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Assuming it bites a level 1 Commoner, he probably has at most a +1 bonus from his Constitution. He has to roll a 10 or higher, but he can still be completely unaffected by it.

In my games, I've houseruled poisons to work more like disease. You get poisoned, you make the save vs initial damage, and one minute later you make the save vs secondary damage. One minute later, you make the save vs secondary damage. One minute later, you make the save vs secondary damage. One minute later, you make the save vs secondary damage. Continue until you make two consecutive secondary saves. If a character is poisoned multiple times from the same type of poison, i.e. a monstrous scorpion stings him three times, he saves vs initial damage from each as normal. Only the first poisoning deals secondary damage, but each additional poisoning since that one increases the DC by +1. A medium monstrous scorpion's poison is DC 13, and deals 1d3 Con. That's three saves or take Con damage, and one minute after the first one make a DC 15 save or take more Con damage. That can easily kill most PCs, and is almost guaranteed to kill a simple 1st level Commoner.

[JellyPooga]

Assuming it bites a level 1 Commoner, he probably has at most a +1 bonus from his Constitution. He has to roll a 10 or higher, but he can still be completely unaffected by it.

In my games, I've houseruled poisons to work more like disease. You get poisoned, you make the save vs initial damage, and one minute later you make the save vs secondary damage. One minute later, you make the save vs secondary damage. One minute later, you make the save vs secondary damage. One minute later, you make the save vs secondary damage. Continue until you make two consecutive secondary saves. If a character is poisoned multiple times from the same type of poison, i.e. a monstrous scorpion stings him three times, he saves vs initial damage from each as normal. Only the first poisoning deals secondary damage, but each additional poisoning since that one increases the DC by +1. A medium monstrous scorpion's poison is DC 13, and deals 1d3 Con. That's three saves or take Con damage, and one minute after the first one make a DC 15 save or take more Con damage. That can easily kill most PCs, and is almost guaranteed to kill a simple 1st level Commoner.

Hmm...I like that Houserule, so I'm going to steal it!

@Kol; yeah I guess dying from a snake bite when you've just successfully slain a dragon is kind of a bummer, but then again if you're savvy enough to kill a dragon, surely you've got the wits not to piss off a snake sufficiently for it to bite you...?

@Quietus; hmm, I didn't know about Virulent Poison...+4 sounds a lot better than just the +2 from Ability Focus...but still requires the addition of bonus feats (i.e. GM fudging)

[Set]

In my games, I've houseruled poisons to work more like disease. You get poisoned, you make the save vs initial damage, and one minute later you make the save vs secondary damage. One minute later, you make the save vs secondary damage. One minute later, you make the save vs secondary damage. One minute later, you make the save vs secondary damage. Continue until you make two consecutive secondary saves.

After seeing how the Time/Progression chart worked in Mutants & Masterminds, I was thinking of using something like that to represent poisons.

Take the 1st hit of damage 1 round after bite. Take the 2nd hit of damage 1 minute later. The 3rd hit 10 minutes thereafter, the 4th hit 1 hour thereafter, the 5th hit 8 hours thereafter, the 6th hit 24 hours later and then just have daily hits from them on. Make two saves in a row and it ends. If Delay Poison is used, the next poison hit is delayed normally, and then progresses on from that new timer normally.

It's fiddly-er, but I like the idea of the poison lingering and possibly killing someone hours, or even days, later.

[Quietus]

@Quietus; hmm, I didn't know about Virulent Poison...+4 sounds a lot better than just the +2 from Ability Focus...but still requires the addition of bonus feats (i.e. GM fudging)

Or give it bonus hit dice. Which also, conveniently, raises the poison DC.

[Pharaoh's Fist]

In real life, even rather poisonous snakes won't always inject enough poison to kill you.

This isn't too unrealistic if you think about it.

[JellyPooga]

In real life, even rather poisonous snakes won't always inject enough poison to kill you.

This isn't too unrealistic if you think about it.

True enough, but even the usually non-deadly venomous snakes, if they get a bite, will 'inject' sufficient venom to cause tissue damage or short-term respiratory problems/paralysis.

I'm not saying that every snake in DnD should have a practically guaranteed chance of killing whoever they bite...I'm just saying that venomous snakes should actually do something...it might not kill you but I'd expect anyone that got bit by a venomous snake to have at least a gammy leg for a few days.

[Alavar]

In my mind, I would have poisons automatically deal damage, no save allowed. It would be temporary ability damage, probably only 1 or 2, then come the saving throws to resist the poison. This would make it so that characters should, rightly so, fear poisons, but that it wouldn't make a huge difference. It would sort of have that "take a hit, feel its effects, then shrug it off" type of luster, like you see happen in many fantasy books.

Only problem I see is intelligent people abusing it...and doing 4-8 ability damage in a single round...so, hmm...maybe make it so more doses increase the later DC for the resists, but don't do the initial damage.

[lsfreak]

While you say it requires DM fudging, I wouldn't. A simple rattlesnake or European adder - not one of the big or particular virulent ones - would be represented by the viper entry. Something like an Indian cobra or diamondback rattlesnake, however, injects more venom or has venom more potent enough that it naturally has Ability Focus. Ramped up more, saw-scaled vipers, kraits, and king cobras have Virulent Poison (with king cobras probably having additional HD). Mambas, taipans, tiger snakes, and the like have both feats and possibly additional HD.

EDIT: Poison doesn't work all that great as-is though either, and I like Biffoniacus_Furiou's fix as a simple one.

[Animefunkmaster]

Keep in mind these naturally occurring poisons have to compete with MAGIC, at least in comparison for there capabilities. So they don't seem as powerful because MAGIC is MAGIC.

As stated above, id6 fire damage seems like a nuisance... well, yes it does. Play a low level game (perhaps even e6) for a seemingly more accurate response of 'put it out before I die'.

A game where 10 is supposed to be the average stat a vipers poison doesn't seem all that unrealistic. Fail the first save (by rolling under a 10) and its all the more likely you fail the second.

[derfenrirwolv]

For example; a Medium Vipers poison has a DC of 11. 11?!? Even Average-McAverage-Pants the Commoner resists that half the time.

Average mcaverage peasants DO resist viper bites most of the time. At least enough to live through them. The us uses.. what? 2 people per year on average from snakebites? And thats not due to antivenin. More people are allergic to the antivenin than the snake bite, so if you show up at a hospital with a venomous snakebite they're going to put you on a saline IV and put you on observation. Unless you start having an allergic reaction to the venom, THEN you'll get the antivenom. And if you're allergic that well...

[JellyPooga]

Keep in mind these naturally occurring poisons have to compete with MAGIC, at least in comparison for there capabilities. So they don't seem as powerful because MAGIC is MAGIC.

As stated above, id6 fire damage seems like a nuisance... well, yes it does. Play a low level game (perhaps even e6) for a seemingly more accurate response of 'put it out before I die'.

A game where 10 is supposed to be the average stat a vipers poison doesn't seem all that unrealistic. Fail the first save (by rolling under a 10) and its all the more likely you fail the second.

Just because there's magic, doesn't mean that mundane poison suddenly becomes ineffective. It's one of the things I dislike about DnD in general; completely mundane things are generally a bit poo...you can't even knock up a chemical compound without being a spellcaster!

The beef I have with poisons as a whole (going slightly off the original topic and talking generally) is that there's a pretty fair chance (DC and Fort save pending) of whatever poison you're talking about will simply have no effect whatsoever. To my mind this is ludicrous; quaffing a vial of a highly virulent poison should almost always have some effect, even if it's as little as a temporary nausea as you fight off the poisons' effects.

[lsfreak]

Average mcaverage peasants DO resist viper bites most of the time. At least enough to live through them. The us uses.. what? 2 people per year on average from snakebites? And thats not due to antivenin. More people are allergic to the antivenin than the snake bite, so if you show up at a hospital with a venomous snakebite they're going to put you on a saline IV and put you on observation. Unless you start having an allergic reaction to the venom, THEN you'll get the antivenom. And if you're allergic that well...

Yea, most people overestimate the deadliness as well. A common European adder causes hundreds of bites a year, and there's less than 10 deaths recorded. Ever. That's the bite the MM viper represents, in my mind, and stuff that's more deadly has the feats or additional HD to show for it.

[awa]

One thing your not taking into account is many if not most poisons don't target constitution and therefore cant kill no matter how much you take.

As has been pointed out even though most real world animals don't have the poison to drop a healthy adult human they usually at least inconvenience the bitten.