Poisoncrafter: optimizing a thematic follower

[ILM]

So Leadership led to a certain number of things, mostly in the form of a thieves' guild our group is heading. We have our cohort (who manages things in our absence) and a bunch of followers.

For kicks, we thought one of them should be able to craft poisons for the rest of us; we've decided on one of the level 4 guys. DM has approved our building her as a PC (32 pb and PC classes) but with NPC WBL, so 3.3k. I've been reading up on the specific craft:poisonmaking rules and the Arsenic & Old Lace handbook and certainly got a lot of ideas from there.

So far this is what I've got:
Prune, Necropolitan Human Cloistered Cleric 1 (Artifice, Craft and Creation domains) / Factotum 3
The feats are Master of Poisons (duh) and Skill Focus from the Craft domain. Other options would be Poison Expert, Poison Master, Wild Cohort and Apprentice (Craftsman). If this were a higher-level character, I might go for some of the more combat-oriented, debuffing feats, but no: this character will never advance past level 4.

The Factotum side gives her access to Magecraft, and the Cleric side allows her to use wands and scrolls and custom items of Divine Insight.

So our Craft (poisonmaking) modifier is:
+3 (assuming 16 int) +7 (ranks) +2 (circumstance bonus, masterwork tools) +3 (unnamed, cunning knowledge) +3 (unnamed, Skill Focus) +4 (unnamed, Artifice domain granted power) +1 (unnamed, Specialized trait) +8 (insight, Divine Insight CL3) +2 (competence, Apprentice) +5 (competence, Magecraft) for a total of +36 since the two last competence bonuses don't stack. Taking ten, that's allows her to reliably make DC 46 craft checks.

As far as I can tell, there are no poisons with Craft DCs over 44, so we're good. However, here's the catch: she has no way of reliably getting her hands on the ingredients. Wild Cohort might get her a supply of viper venom, big whoop. But how does she get dragon bile or black lotus to extract? The rules state it costs her 1/6th of the listed price to craft, if the ingredients are readily available, and that's the part I'm stuck on. How do I make them readily available? (barring other guildmates going on harvesting hunts?)

[Madara]

Flavor wise I would say that she is able to imitate the natural poison by creating concoctions using materials she does have. That's what the craft check is for, imitating the poison.

[Lucianus]

"Readily Available" usually means they are available on the open market. If your GM decides to make you earn them, as I would if my players had a poison making machine back home, it would be up to him/her. Talk to him/her and see if he/she cares about where your buddy gets the supplies needed for the poisons, maybe just supplying the gold value to him will be good enough.

Worst case scenario, you'll have to research the plants listed for each poisons raw ingredients and go "adventuring" to their natural terrain to find them. Your GM may see that as a great hook! Same for dragon bile and other animal extracts;
find dragon, kill it, take gallbladder, squeeze out bile

What I've done for my players (they befriended an alchemist who made things for them) is pick an ingredient, if listed bonus, if not just make one up, and send the party on a quest to kill/pacify all the nasties who are in the area where this ingredient is common. This then opens that area up for easy collection of said ingredient in the future.

Ultimatly, it would be your GM's call on how difficult this whole thing would be, but remember, don't give him/her ideas to make it harder for yourself! GM's love it when players do that to themselves :smallbiggrin:

[Crasical]

Dumb question, do the rest of you have poison use? Otherwise having all these huge vats of poisons being brewed seems like an unsafe work environment.

[Madara]

Dumb question, do the rest of you have poison use? Otherwise having all these huge vats of poisons being brewed seems like an unsafe work environment.

I'm thinking they're undead.

[Crasical]

I'm thinking they're undead.

The crafter Prune explicitly is, I dunno about ILM, their party, or the rest of the thieves guild.

[Venusaur]

If you burn a feat on hidden talent, then you can grab psionic minor creation to make a cubic foot of black lotus extract whenever. Maybe get some way of getting more pp though.

[Crasical]

If you burn a feat on hidden talent, then you can grab psionic minor creation to make a cubic foot of black lotus extract whenever. Maybe get some way of getting more pp though.

Though Psionic Minor Creation doesn't have a material component so you can create the stuff without having a sample on hand, you -do- have to make the craft check. Prune can, so it isn't an issue, but your GM might still force you to get a sample of the stuff to analyze first, so the alchemist knows what they're trying to replicate. It also has the downside of only lasting an hour or so, so no taking some with you on adventures.

Edit: One 'dose' of inhaled poison fits inside an eggshell and fills a 10x10 area when broken open. A dedicated psion might create six or seven pounds of material with PMC burnt uther fumes, so it might be possible you can fumigate an entire dungeon before entering it.

[Greyfeld85]

If your DM is at all open to homebrew, you should have him take a look at this class. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=214607) It's everything you could want a poisoncrafter to be and more. It's flavorful, useful, and sits around a solid tier 3.

[ILM]

"Readily Available" usually means they are available on the open market.
Really? I thought it meant that you had some sort of endless supply of the ingredients, and that the cost only covered whatever alchemical supplies you expended in the crafting. I don't suppose there's a clarification of that anywhere in the rules?


Dumb question, do the rest of you have poison use? Otherwise having all these huge vats of poisons being brewed seems like an unsafe work environment.
No. Doesn't matter. Like I said, it's really more of a flavour thing, we don't expect to start using poison left and right. Besides, by the crafting rules it still takes like two weeks and a half for her to brew one single dose of black lotus extract, so it's not like we'll be swimming in it.


If you burn a feat on hidden talent, then you can grab psionic minor creation to make a cubic foot of black lotus extract whenever. Maybe get some way of getting more pp though.
Our DM has ruled that while you can create whatever with Minor Creation (we don't do psionics either), it only lasts 1 hour / CL. Even if that were long enough to cover the crafting time, which it isn't, it would just mean that the resulting poison turns to a mostly harmless alchemical mixture CL hours after casting the spell.


Any feats anyone can think of that can help making stuff 'readily available', whatever that means?

[Crasical]

Our DM has ruled that while you can create whatever with Minor Creation (we don't do psionics either), it only lasts 1 hour / CL. Even if that were long enough to cover the crafting time, which it isn't, it would just mean that the resulting poison turns to a mostly harmless alchemical mixture CL hours after casting the spell.

That is not a special ruling, that is how Minor Creation works normally. And you don't pump out raw material and then process it, you're allowed a Craft Check as part of the casting action to refine the stuff. Not really important to you, but wanted to clarify.