Poisons, why so useless?

[Provengreil]

OK, so i find that I have a preference for sneaky classes. In some builds, i want to make good use of poison, but i can never figure out good ways to make it work. there are usually 3 things in my way:

1. the delivery system. When i try this, i usually take advantage of the RAW way that poison doesn't "wear off", and poison some shuriken. that way i can draw them as a free action, and make my opening salvo some weakening shots.

the pros of this, as i see it, is that i don't have to spend combat actions getting ready to poison someone, i can do it at range(preferably with SA damage if the target is not immune), and i can cheaply enchant ammo with seeking or other bonuses. the cons are that the base damage is minimal, the range is low, and shriken often necessitate a feat to avoid nonproficiency penalty that sucks on a medium BAB chassis. You can also waste the poison completely by missing your shot. this is the easiest problem, though, compared to the other ones.

2. Effectiveness. some poisons can be really nice when you get them off. dragon bile does 3d6 STR damage at DC25, IIRC, so it's a high save that can really impede the target immediately. the problem is that fortitude saves tend to be high, many enemies are immune, the one minute delay often means that only the first effect has time to manifest(hence dragon bile being nice, packing its whole effect into the first save), and most of the save DCs or poison effects are too small to reliably help. this is a rather sizeable issue.

3. Cost. oh dear pelor, the cost. poisons that matter cost thousands of gp per dose, where each dose means one chance at making the enemy a little weaker(or slower, or whatever your poison does). When compared to, say, a scroll that has a better chance of effecting its target for a greater effect at a lower cost(ray of enfeeblement, anyone?), it just falls flat on its face unless you craft it yourself, and even then you have to be near the ingredients to bring the cost down. but then you have a much greater chance of accidentally poisoning yourself or party members, and it still takes weeks to make a single dose, making it only useful on the big bads, who have the best chance of not caring anyway.


So, i guess what I'm asking is, does anyone know of a way to make this tactic more effective or available?

[JaronK]

Hidden Talent lets you cast Psionic Minor Creation. This can make 1 hour of vegetable matter once per day. Black Lotus Poison and Sinmaker's Surprise are both impressive con damage poisons made of vegetable matter (the latter does less damage but with a higher DC). Meanwhile, a full on Psionic character can just use that power. Regular Minor Creation is a higher level spell, but has similar effects and get you plenty of poison for the day. You can also use these to get poison modifiers (see the Arsenic and Old Lace handbook on the BG forums)... they're vegetable matter too. One raises the DC by 2, the other puts enemies to sleep if poison hits home.

The Assassination enchantment adds the weapon's enchantment bonus to the poison DCs. Terrifying Strike and Sickening Strike are feats that let you lower an opponent's save by 4 (together) at the cost of 2d6 sneak attack. Being an Unseelie Fey lowers their saves by your Cha mod when you're close enough. Paladin of Tyranny, Binder, and Black Guard can all lower saves by 2 each if you have a few levels in them. Putting this all together with Sinmaker's Surprise can ensure your poisons actually land... especially since that poison hurts their fort saves, so one hit means the next will land.

The Master of Poisons feat from Drow of the Underdark lets you poison your weapon as a swift action, and makes you not poison yourself accidentally. That's enough to make one poisoned attack per round after the first even in melee. There's also two weapon enchantments in MiC that help... one reduces the time between saves to 5 rounds, the other lets each poison hit twice.

JaronK

[IthilanorStPete]

The one build I've made using poisons was a Factotum, using Major Creation to make Black Lotus Poison by the vatload. It seems rather "in-character" for the class, presenting another option for them to use, and they can easily make the necessary Craft (poisonmaking) check with a bit of work.

[Incanur]

At low levels, things like sleep-smoke (from the Waterdeep book) rule. 25gp per dose, unconscious/unconscious, and blocks line of sight if I recall correctly.

At higher levels, creation spells/powers make poison affordable.

[missmvicious]

1. Delivery system: Poison tipped arrows.

2. Effectiveness: use it realistically. Something with thick natural armor or high resistance (or immunity) to poison should make your neat trick ineffective. But adventurers are clever and know to use the right tool for the job. Want to poison the Orc guard of the evil Wizard's tower so that he takes a little nap while you sneak past him? Great. That way, any passing guard who sees him will just slap him a wake and accuse him of being lazy, instead of just sounding the alarm and sending hordes of guards after you. Want to KO a dragon? Switch to a Vorpal Battle Axe... or build a Ballista if you put some ranks in Craft.

3. Cost: Harvest your own goods. Those poisons came from somewhere. Put some ranks in Craft, and start hunting down vipers, spiders, centipedes, flowers (yes flowers), etc. There are risks and time involved, but you could make a strong argument to the DM that not nearly as much cost would be involved if you're making this stuff from scratch. Heck.. make a lucid enough argument, and he may only make you pay for an Alchemist's Lab or some equivalent and the components are free if you can find them in nature.

Of course... depending on how naughty you feel like being. You could just steal poisons from a merchant. Hit up your next town, stay a while. Gather some Information about poison and venom dealers and start making your skill checks. And if you get caught, just have your companions bust/bail you out of jail. After all, what are friends for?

If you want to craft your own deadly brews to dip your shurikens into, and are delightfully nerdy about it, research the difference between venoms, toxins, and poisons. There are differences, and they are typically harvested in different ways and have different after effects and different dangers when making them. For instance, venom is harmless if swallowed and must be transmitted directly into the bloodstream (via a bite or piercing weapon) to be deadly. These may be safer to work with than poisons but are a little trickier to harvest.

[Hiro Protagonest]

2. Effectiveness: use it realistically. Something with thick natural armor or high resistance (or immunity) to poison should make your neat trick ineffective. But adventurers are clever and know to use the right tool for the job. Want to poison the Orc guard of the evil Wizard's tower so that he takes a little nap while you sneak past him? Great. That way, any passing guard who sees him will just slap him a wake and accuse him of being lazy, instead of just sounding the alarm and sending hordes of guards after you. Want to KO a dragon? Switch to a Vorpal Battle Axe... or build a Ballista if you put some ranks in Craft.

Realism: Making mundanes livestock and casters gods since the dawn of fantasy.

[hex0]

Psychic Rogue that takes Expanded Knowledge for Minor Psionic Creation at 3rd level. :smallamused:

[Provengreil]

3. Cost: Harvest your own goods. Those poisons came from somewhere. Put some ranks in Craft, and start hunting down vipers, spiders, centipedes, flowers (yes flowers), etc. There are risks and time involved, but you could make a strong argument to the DM that not nearly as much cost would be involved if you're making this stuff from scratch. Heck.. make a lucid enough argument, and he may only make you pay for an Alchemist's Lab or some equivalent and the components are free if you can find them in nature.


the harvesting actually works RAW, i think it brings cost down to 1/8th or something, you just have to get the stuff in the first place. that is still an issue, since mats can pretty hard to get at if you aren't in the right areas and have no creation feats.

as for all the creation suggestions, someone else may have already addressed this somewhere else, but wouldn't that not work? you use creation to get the plant matter, but you still have to make a successful craft check. Using black lotus as an example, the DC of the poison is 20(this would be the save DC, the srd doesn't list a craft DC), and the cost is 4500 gp/dose, meaning that you have to get a craft check of...2250 to get the final item in one check. If you don't make it, you don't get the poison and have to wait a week to add to the sp value of poison made till you get the appropriate amount, by which time the creation is gone. these types of poison take months to make, which folds back into the cost issue.

the lowering of saves and weapon enchants are great though, it would make the damage much more likely to go off.

[Piggy Knowles]

I designed a halfling druid for a campaign that never ended up happening. The basic gist of things was taking the jungle halfling from UA, which gets poison use and shortbow proficiency, and the halfling druid sub levels, which would give me a pretty good measure of sneakiness. I'd harvest poisons from animals (Handle Animal, poisonous animal companion, etc.), craft my own, and have a healthy variety of poison-fletched arrows.

The idea was that it gave me easy access to poisons and a way to apply them at low levels, while they were still effective. At high levels, if the DM gave me access to more potent sources of poison, then great. If not... well, you know, druid. It's not like I wouldn't have found anything to do.

[Alleine]

as for all the creation suggestions, someone else may have already addressed this somewhere else, but wouldn't that not work? you use creation to get the plant matter, but you still have to make a successful craft check. Using black lotus as an example, the DC of the poison is 20(this would be the save DC, the srd doesn't list a craft DC), and the cost is 4500 gp/dose, meaning that you have to get a craft check of...2250 to get the final item in one check. If you don't make it, you don't get the poison and have to wait a week to add to the sp value of poison made till you get the appropriate amount, by which time the creation is gone. these types of poison take months to make, which folds back into the cost issue.

I think what it means is the "complex or superior item" as listed here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/craft.htm) on that table. So you have to make a DC 20 skill check. It doesn't make much sense to have to make the skill checks to craft as normal when you're using magic to conjure it. I could be wrong though.

And JaronK already mentioned it, but here's a link (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=4854.0) to the poison guide on BG. People have already mentioned some of the methods it advises, but it should be helpful nonetheless.

[Provengreil]

thanks for that link, it'll probably tell me everything i need to see.

[JaronK]

as for all the creation suggestions, someone else may have already addressed this somewhere else, but wouldn't that not work? you use creation to get the plant matter, but you still have to make a successful craft check. Using black lotus as an example, the DC of the poison is 20(this would be the save DC, the srd doesn't list a craft DC), and the cost is 4500 gp/dose, meaning that you have to get a craft check of...2250 to get the final item in one check. If you don't make it, you don't get the poison and have to wait a week to add to the sp value of poison made till you get the appropriate amount, by which time the creation is gone. these types of poison take months to make, which folds back into the cost issue.


Minor Creation just requires a single craft check (at the normal DC) to make the item right then. So you just need to be able to reliably hit a DC 20 (for a DC 20 poison) and you're golden. If you're only doing it once a day, this makes Factotums great at it... just cast Minor Creation and add your Factotum level to the check. You only need one rank, and you just take 10.

JaronK