Oracle_Hunter
2009-10-27, 11:53 AM
In my 4E campaign, a new player is coming in with a 9th level Rogue - and he wants to use poisons.
Now, I hadn't given the poison rules a close look before, so I thought it'd be a good idea to ask around about them.
Summary of Poison Rules
It takes a standard action to apply poison to a weapon. That poison is triggered by the next successful hit and is used up. At the longest, an applied poison lasts for an Encounter or 5 minutes - whichever comes first.
Making poisons requires a different Alchemy Ritual for each poison
Now, this doesn't seem too bad, but the player also wants an AV2 item - the Poison Glove:
Poison Gloves
You can store a nasty surprise in these plain-looking gloves to
envenom a weapon at a moment’s notice.
Level: 4
Price: 840 gp
Item Slot: Hands
Power (At-Will): Standard. You store one dose of poison that can be
applied to a weapon in these gloves. The gloves can hold only one dose
of poison at a time.
Power (At-Will): Minor. You apply the stored poison to a weapon you’re
holding; doing so consumes that dose of poison.
This means he can store a poison in the gloves indefinitely, and then use it as a minor action. Admittedly, it is only 1 dose at a time, but since this upgrades a given attack to an Ongoing Damage + Status attack, I worry.
So I'm proposing the following Houserules
(1) There are only 3 Brew Poison Rituals - Brew Heroic, Brew Paragon, and Brew Epic. All Poison Rituals require the use of Venom Reagents and no other. All Brew Potion Rituals take 30 minutes to produce 1 dose of poison.
(2) Venom Reagents are the odds & ends needed to turn natural (and unnatural) poisons into substances potent enough (and sticky enough) to be used on weapons. They are non-magical and, because of their nature, not available in legal markets.
Someone Trained in Nature may harvest Venom Reagents from monsters that have a Poison attack. If you make a DC 20+1/2(Monster Level) check, you get Venom Reagents worth 1/5 of the cost of a Poison of the Monster's Level.
(3) A brewed poison must be stored in a tightly stoppered container that takes a minor action to open. Once exposed to air, the poison decays within 5 minutes (or at the end of the Encounter) if not used beforehand. Even within a vial, a poison loses potency after 24 hours (or after an Extended Rest).
A decayed poison may be harvested for Venom Reagents within 6 hours of the time of decay. Harvesting in this fashion requires a DC 15+1/2(Poison Level) Nature check (Trained Only) and it recovers 1/5th of the Poison's cost.
How's that sound? And does anyone have experience with players using poison in a game?
Now, I hadn't given the poison rules a close look before, so I thought it'd be a good idea to ask around about them.
Summary of Poison Rules
It takes a standard action to apply poison to a weapon. That poison is triggered by the next successful hit and is used up. At the longest, an applied poison lasts for an Encounter or 5 minutes - whichever comes first.
Making poisons requires a different Alchemy Ritual for each poison
Now, this doesn't seem too bad, but the player also wants an AV2 item - the Poison Glove:
Poison Gloves
You can store a nasty surprise in these plain-looking gloves to
envenom a weapon at a moment’s notice.
Level: 4
Price: 840 gp
Item Slot: Hands
Power (At-Will): Standard. You store one dose of poison that can be
applied to a weapon in these gloves. The gloves can hold only one dose
of poison at a time.
Power (At-Will): Minor. You apply the stored poison to a weapon you’re
holding; doing so consumes that dose of poison.
This means he can store a poison in the gloves indefinitely, and then use it as a minor action. Admittedly, it is only 1 dose at a time, but since this upgrades a given attack to an Ongoing Damage + Status attack, I worry.
So I'm proposing the following Houserules
(1) There are only 3 Brew Poison Rituals - Brew Heroic, Brew Paragon, and Brew Epic. All Poison Rituals require the use of Venom Reagents and no other. All Brew Potion Rituals take 30 minutes to produce 1 dose of poison.
(2) Venom Reagents are the odds & ends needed to turn natural (and unnatural) poisons into substances potent enough (and sticky enough) to be used on weapons. They are non-magical and, because of their nature, not available in legal markets.
Someone Trained in Nature may harvest Venom Reagents from monsters that have a Poison attack. If you make a DC 20+1/2(Monster Level) check, you get Venom Reagents worth 1/5 of the cost of a Poison of the Monster's Level.
(3) A brewed poison must be stored in a tightly stoppered container that takes a minor action to open. Once exposed to air, the poison decays within 5 minutes (or at the end of the Encounter) if not used beforehand. Even within a vial, a poison loses potency after 24 hours (or after an Extended Rest).
A decayed poison may be harvested for Venom Reagents within 6 hours of the time of decay. Harvesting in this fashion requires a DC 15+1/2(Poison Level) Nature check (Trained Only) and it recovers 1/5th of the Poison's cost.
How's that sound? And does anyone have experience with players using poison in a game?