[PF] Alchemist - Alchemy and Poison

[Bharg]

Do you know any good sources on poisons in Pathfinder?

Ist it possible to craft poisons alchemicaly? If yes, how?

[Mithril Leaf]

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/afflictions/poison

In 3.5 you could make poisons with craft(alchemy) by taking -4 on your check. Not sure is this is true in 3.P

[Rentaromon]

go to pathfinder srd, it has EVERYTHING.

[Bharg]

I knew that site. I just didn't spot the paragraph about crafting poisons I guess.

Do you have any experience with playing a character that utilizes poison?
As an alchemist you seem to get a lot of poison related feats. Are they really worth it? What is the best way to use poison in and out of combat?

The dcs for creating poisons don't seem to be too high and there isn't any information on how rare they actually are or what materials they require. Would an alchemist just be able to craft every poison in existence? How would you handle that as a DM?

[StreamOfTheSky]

I'd just let them pay the 1/3 materials cost and "synthetically create" any poison they want (or any that they know of / have experience with; but I'd base that knowledge on an alchemy check, so...yeah) with Craft (Alchemy).

I'm pretty sure this is how it works RAW, but it is annoying they don't come right out and say it. I take the utter lack of rules for "harvesting poison from creatures" rules to back up my assertion. If you needed to do something special beyond the normal craft rules to make poisons, it should be covered in the rules somewhere. Clearly, it is not.

As for how good it can be...? To me, poison is too expensive and weak in immediate effect to be worth basing a character around. But Alchemist can be very good at it, thanks to 2 discoveries -- Sticky Poison and Poison Conversion, both sadly requiring Alchemist 6 before you can join the party. Former gives a poison as many uses as you have Int modifer, helping with the costs. Latter lets you change poison from one infliction method to another. Like say... Inhaled Drow Poison :) It also does not list any sort of cost for converting... I would either treat it as free or 1/5 the cost of the poison's market price (ie, the price to "repair an item"). I would also allow someone w/ Poison Conversion to just plain make the converted form of poison directly (just make inhaled drow poison, instead of making injury type drow poison first just to then convert it; that seems silly) at its regular cost.

And of course, Alchemist gets poison use, faster poison creation, and poison immunity (chuck that inhaled drow poison and then fight amidst it in melee locking down your foes' escape as you laugh heartily) on top of those discoveries.

So yeah, could be good with an alchemist. Just not my thing.

[Bharg]

Using inhaled poison sounds like a really interesting idea. However looking at the prices of the "inhaled" poisons, which are all above 1,000 gold, poison conversion seems like a requirement to make using them somewhat affordable. But then there would still be a lack of rules. SRD says 1 dose of inhaled poison fills a 10ft. cube, but it doesn't say anything about how long it takes for the poison to dissipate (can't think of a better word. hope it makes sense) or using bottled inhaled poison as kind of a splash weapon.

[Mustard]

To craft poison, follow the general crafting outline (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/skills/craft.html#_craft), and as per this glossary entry (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/glossary.html#poison) on poisons, use the poison's fortitude save DC as the crafting DC.

I've wanted to make effective use of poison, but it's not really practical, in my opinion (for PCs). It's just a waste on weaker enemies, and bosses typically have great saves. My character who used poisons (casually, admittedly, using no additional investment beyond the Alchemist class Poison Use ability) even had a dagger with a swift action poison application, and I found it didn't work out most of the time. I didn't give it a good enough shot, though, and if I was motivated enough to keep at it, I might have a different opinion. I gave up mainly because I had basically wasted a very good black lotus extract, and decided it was too risky (edit: on party wealth) to continue (edit: because even if it did work, that's a lot of gold!).

Edit: As for inhaled poison dissipation, this is by no means official, but I would assume it's basically instantaneous duration, using powder (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/advanced/advancedGear.html#powder) as precedent on fine powders dissipating immediately.