Viletta Vadim
2010-02-03, 05:39 PM
I'm quite fond of poisons. However, rather limited selections get rather annoying, so I decided to slap together some makeshift custom poison rules.
Now, then. Objectives. I want a sturdy set of custom poison rules. Also, poisons tend to be overpriced and scaled poorly, so these rules should make poisons less expensive, more worthwhile, and hopefully better over the long haul. Powerful poisons should be powerful and dangerous without having an utterly ludicrous price tag. I have no problems with an archer who has a weak poison on very nearly every arrow.
Also, I want these rules to be able to scale downward; I want it to be possible to get a dose of really crappy ingested poison for a couple coppers, so that you can afford tens of thousands of doses to poison a well or a river or a lake to slowly wipe out a city or something.
Now then, everything goes off of a baseline, so here's mine. The generic design poison:
Poison- Generic Venom
Type- Injury DC10
Initial Damage- 1 Str
Secondary Damage- 1 Str
Onset- Initial damage immediate, secondary damage after one minute
Price- 3g
This is where I see the most basic, generic poison as sitting.
The way I'm building this formula, I calculate the value of the primary effect, then I calculate the value of the secondary effect, add those up, and then multiply in a couple global modifiers.
Damage Costs:
The base cost is on a quadratic scale, based on average ability damage, whether it's 1, 2d6, 1d8, 3d2+1, whatever. The cost for initial damage is twice the average total ability damage squared in copper pieces. The cost for initial secondary damage is just the average total ability damage squared in copper pieces. Generally, it's assumed that all damage goes to the same stat.
If the primary or secondary damage applies to constitution, then its price is doubled. If the primary or secondary damage applies to a random stat, chosen at the time the victim is affected by the poison, then its price is halved.
One point of permanent ability drain counts as five points of damage.
Global Modifiers:
In case you haven't noticed, the base damage cost comes out to be pretty cheap. 200g for a poison that deals a hundred points of ability damage right off the bat? Yeah, no.
Global modifiers are what really ramps prices up. Or, alternately, brings prices down to 'poison the lake' levels. The three main global modifiers are for DC, type, and onset, plus special modifiers.
DC: This is the main modifier.Multiply the poison's cost by the save DC squared. A poison's save DC cannot be less than ten plus the poison's average primary damage plus the poison's average secondary damage. This minimum is reduced by eight for ingested poisons. One point of permanent ability drain still counts as five points of ability damage when determining minumum DC.
Type:
Of course, poison type is a big deal. An inhaled poison is a lot better than an ingested poison. So, just pull the type modifier from the following table.
Type Modifier
Ingested /8
Injury x1
Contact x2
Inhaled x8
Onset
By default, all poisons have their primary effect kick in immediately and their secondary effect kick in a minute later. I don't like that. So, I'm adding in options for slower-onset poisons. Just pull the modifier from the table.
Initial/Secondary Modifier
Immediate/1 Round x2
Immediate/1 Minute x1
1 Minute/1 Hour /4
1 Hour/1 Day /8
1 Day/1 Week /16
Special
Then, there are poisons that only affect one creature type, or poisons that can affect creatures normally immune. These modifiers are in the following table.
Condition Modifier
Affects one type /4 (e.g. giants-only; cannot be humanoids or a type naturally immune to poison)
Affects only humanoids /2
Affects one humanoid type /4 (e.g. elves-only)
Affects one creature /16 (e.g. Elminster-only, does not stack with other one-type restriction)
Affects one immune type x4 (e.g. affects undead; a poison with this modifiers only affects that one type and only bypasses natural immunity, not immunity gained through any other source, mindless creatures cannot be affected by poisons that inflict damage to mental stats)
Crafting
I don't really have a Craft DC formula I'm really married to, yet. I'm going with 10+Save DC/2 for the Craft DC for now.
Putting it All Together
The summarized version comes down to this.
GP Cost=(.02 x Ability Mod x AID^2 + .01 x Ability Mod ASD^2) x DC^2 x Type Mod x Onset Mod x Special Mod
Craft DC=10 + Save DC / 2
Legend:
AID: Average Initial Damage. One point of permanent ability damage counts as five points of ability damage.
ASD: Average secondary damage. One point of permanent ability damage counts as five points of ability damage.
Ability Mod: If the relevant ability damage affects Constitution, this modifier is 2. If it affects a random ability score, this modifier is 1/2. Otherwise, it's 1.
DC: Minimum 10+AID+ASD for injury, contact, and inhaled poisons. Minimum 2+AID+ASD for ingested poisons.
Type Mod:
Type Modifier
Ingested /8
Injury x1
Contact x2
Inhaled x8
Onset Mod:
[b]Initial/Secondary Modifier
Immediate/1 Round x4
Immediate/1 Minute x1
1 Minute/1 Hour /4
1 Hour/1 Day /16
1 Day/1 Week /64
Special Mod:
[b]
Condition Modifier
Affects one type /4 (e.g. giants-only; cannot be humanoids or a type naturally immune to poison)
Affects only humanoids /2
Affects one humanoid type /4 (e.g. elves-only)
Affects one creature /16 (e.g. Elminster-only, does not stack with other one-type restriction)
Affects one immune type x4 (e.g. affects undead; a poison with this modifiers only affects that one type and only bypasses natural immunity, not immunity gained through any other source, mindless creatures cannot be affected by poisons that inflict damage to mental stats)
Thoughts? Too much math? Broken as all get-out?
Now, then. Objectives. I want a sturdy set of custom poison rules. Also, poisons tend to be overpriced and scaled poorly, so these rules should make poisons less expensive, more worthwhile, and hopefully better over the long haul. Powerful poisons should be powerful and dangerous without having an utterly ludicrous price tag. I have no problems with an archer who has a weak poison on very nearly every arrow.
Also, I want these rules to be able to scale downward; I want it to be possible to get a dose of really crappy ingested poison for a couple coppers, so that you can afford tens of thousands of doses to poison a well or a river or a lake to slowly wipe out a city or something.
Now then, everything goes off of a baseline, so here's mine. The generic design poison:
Poison- Generic Venom
Type- Injury DC10
Initial Damage- 1 Str
Secondary Damage- 1 Str
Onset- Initial damage immediate, secondary damage after one minute
Price- 3g
This is where I see the most basic, generic poison as sitting.
The way I'm building this formula, I calculate the value of the primary effect, then I calculate the value of the secondary effect, add those up, and then multiply in a couple global modifiers.
Damage Costs:
The base cost is on a quadratic scale, based on average ability damage, whether it's 1, 2d6, 1d8, 3d2+1, whatever. The cost for initial damage is twice the average total ability damage squared in copper pieces. The cost for initial secondary damage is just the average total ability damage squared in copper pieces. Generally, it's assumed that all damage goes to the same stat.
If the primary or secondary damage applies to constitution, then its price is doubled. If the primary or secondary damage applies to a random stat, chosen at the time the victim is affected by the poison, then its price is halved.
One point of permanent ability drain counts as five points of damage.
Global Modifiers:
In case you haven't noticed, the base damage cost comes out to be pretty cheap. 200g for a poison that deals a hundred points of ability damage right off the bat? Yeah, no.
Global modifiers are what really ramps prices up. Or, alternately, brings prices down to 'poison the lake' levels. The three main global modifiers are for DC, type, and onset, plus special modifiers.
DC: This is the main modifier.Multiply the poison's cost by the save DC squared. A poison's save DC cannot be less than ten plus the poison's average primary damage plus the poison's average secondary damage. This minimum is reduced by eight for ingested poisons. One point of permanent ability drain still counts as five points of ability damage when determining minumum DC.
Type:
Of course, poison type is a big deal. An inhaled poison is a lot better than an ingested poison. So, just pull the type modifier from the following table.
Type Modifier
Ingested /8
Injury x1
Contact x2
Inhaled x8
Onset
By default, all poisons have their primary effect kick in immediately and their secondary effect kick in a minute later. I don't like that. So, I'm adding in options for slower-onset poisons. Just pull the modifier from the table.
Initial/Secondary Modifier
Immediate/1 Round x2
Immediate/1 Minute x1
1 Minute/1 Hour /4
1 Hour/1 Day /8
1 Day/1 Week /16
Special
Then, there are poisons that only affect one creature type, or poisons that can affect creatures normally immune. These modifiers are in the following table.
Condition Modifier
Affects one type /4 (e.g. giants-only; cannot be humanoids or a type naturally immune to poison)
Affects only humanoids /2
Affects one humanoid type /4 (e.g. elves-only)
Affects one creature /16 (e.g. Elminster-only, does not stack with other one-type restriction)
Affects one immune type x4 (e.g. affects undead; a poison with this modifiers only affects that one type and only bypasses natural immunity, not immunity gained through any other source, mindless creatures cannot be affected by poisons that inflict damage to mental stats)
Crafting
I don't really have a Craft DC formula I'm really married to, yet. I'm going with 10+Save DC/2 for the Craft DC for now.
Putting it All Together
The summarized version comes down to this.
GP Cost=(.02 x Ability Mod x AID^2 + .01 x Ability Mod ASD^2) x DC^2 x Type Mod x Onset Mod x Special Mod
Craft DC=10 + Save DC / 2
Legend:
AID: Average Initial Damage. One point of permanent ability damage counts as five points of ability damage.
ASD: Average secondary damage. One point of permanent ability damage counts as five points of ability damage.
Ability Mod: If the relevant ability damage affects Constitution, this modifier is 2. If it affects a random ability score, this modifier is 1/2. Otherwise, it's 1.
DC: Minimum 10+AID+ASD for injury, contact, and inhaled poisons. Minimum 2+AID+ASD for ingested poisons.
Type Mod:
Type Modifier
Ingested /8
Injury x1
Contact x2
Inhaled x8
Onset Mod:
[b]Initial/Secondary Modifier
Immediate/1 Round x4
Immediate/1 Minute x1
1 Minute/1 Hour /4
1 Hour/1 Day /16
1 Day/1 Week /64
Special Mod:
[b]
Condition Modifier
Affects one type /4 (e.g. giants-only; cannot be humanoids or a type naturally immune to poison)
Affects only humanoids /2
Affects one humanoid type /4 (e.g. elves-only)
Affects one creature /16 (e.g. Elminster-only, does not stack with other one-type restriction)
Affects one immune type x4 (e.g. affects undead; a poison with this modifiers only affects that one type and only bypasses natural immunity, not immunity gained through any other source, mindless creatures cannot be affected by poisons that inflict damage to mental stats)
Thoughts? Too much math? Broken as all get-out?