Heavy Metal Poisoning?

[Jallorn]

Are there rules anywhere for using heavy metals, like say gold shavings, as poison? Seems like it would be a great way to hide your role, since metals aren't commonly thought of as poisons.

[The Glyphstone]

That's because D&D considers Poisons to be strictly short-term or rapid-onset effects. If you wanted to replicate, say, mercury or lead poisoning, it'd be modeled better as a Disease with an extremely long incubation period and a conditional cure with lack of exposure.

Amusingly, elemental gold is actually non-toxic.

[MesiDoomstalker]

Chemistry nitpick: Gold and Silver won't cause poisoning unless you ingest a very large quanitity, like a nugget of gold. They are both almost complelty inert in most biological systems (crazy DnD biolgies aside) and the large quantity has more to do with have a extremly large and dense indigestable mass in your digestive tract. Lead and Nickel are better candidates.

[Rubik]

Arsenic is a toxic metal as well, and I believe it's...Str damage? Could be.

And you can find arsenic in cherry pits and apple seeds, so you can make it with Psionic/Minor Creation.

[Slipperychicken]

Arsenic is a toxic metal as well, and I believe it's...Str damage? Could be.

And you can find arsenic in cherry pits and apple seeds, so you can make it with Psionic/Minor Creation.

Injested, DC13, primary 1 Con, secondary 1d8 Con. In all ways inferior to Black Lotus Extract, except for price, which is ignored by Minor Creation.

[grarrrg]

Well, you'd need at least 3 Bards, preferably more, but 3 is the general minimum.

Have 1 max out his Perform (Sing) skill, the others should do Perform (Instrument).
Some type of magic to increase the volume of the sounds they put out.

Yeah, not really Poisoning, so much as Deafening...
Not sure how you'd kill someone with it though, unless you can get it to do Sonic damage.

[The Glyphstone]

Well, you'd need at least 3 Bards, preferably more, but 3 is the general minimum.

Have 1 max out his Perform (Sing) skill, the others should do Perform (Instrument).
Some type of magic to increase the volume of the sounds they put out.

Yeah, not really Poisoning, so much as Deafening...
Not sure how you'd kill someone with it though, unless you can get it to do Sonic damage.

Oh, that's easy. Bards with the Poison Spell metamagic feat, casting Sound Burst and Cacaphonic Sphere.

[Jeff the Green]

Chemistry nitpick: Gold and Silver won't cause poisoning unless you ingest a very large quanitity, like a nugget of gold. They are both almost complelty inert in most biological systems (crazy DnD biolgies aside) and the large quantity has more to do with have a extremly large and dense indigestable mass in your digestive tract. Lead and Nickel are better candidates.

Libertarian Senate candidate Stan Jones (http://whatstheharm.net/colloidalsilver.html) would like a word with you. :smallamused:

In all seriousness, elemental ("colloidal") silver can cause a host of issues such as neurological and kidney damage. And while elemental gold is inert in the body, gold salts (such as gold choride) are toxic, and implicated in Diane de Poitier's death (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/6865939/French-kings-mistress-poisoned-by-gold-elixir.html). It causes kidney damage and brittle bones.

So, you could go with--like The Glyphstone said--making them a disease. For gold poisoning:


Infection: Ingested.
DC: 5.
Incubation: 1d6 years.
Damage: 1d2 CON (every month).
Special: A character must ingest at least five doses of gold salts over a period of two years to develop gold poisoning. A character cannot heal CON damage from gold poisoning naturally if they have ingested gold salts in the last six months. If a character has ingested gold salts in the last month, they incur a -20 penalty to fortitude saves to avoid ability damage from gold poisoning.

For argyria:


Infection: Ingested.
DC: 5.
Incubation: 1d3 years.
Damage: 1 CON (every month).
Special: A character must ingest at least five doses of colloidal silver over a period of a year to develop argyria. A character cannot heal CON damage from argyria naturally if they have ingested colloidal silver in the last six months. If a character has ingested colloidal silver in the last month, they incur a -20 penalty to fortitude saves to avoid ability damage from argyria. A character that has taken at least 1 CON damage from argyria turns permanently blue. Only regenerate can restore the character to its natural coloring.