The Poisoner

[Savith9]

I'm wanting to build a character that has a focus in poisons for their primary combat style, granted poisons are usually terrible but I've also seen those few poisons that can be a huge pain to deal with. For class I was thinking either ranger or rogue more than likely ranger due to the fact that I could apply different poisons to arrows and color the feathers for easy identification.

Some of the feats im looking at are:

Master of Poisons
Poison Expert
Poison Master

Granted a majority of these have to do with increasing damage with poisons or making you immune. Does anyone have any other ideas on how to maximize a poison character build?

Edit1: 3 of the previous listed feats were specific to monster races with poison abilities and have been removed.

[Abemad]

Sickening and Terrifying strike (both from drow of the underdark) are both excelent ambush feats (both cause -2 to saves among other things). There is a combat style that also applies a -2 penalty to a single save of your choice - I think its eilserv school...

Venomous strike from the same book increases the DC of poisons by 2, but the other ambush feats are far better imo...

[Vaz]

The obligatory Arsenic and Old Lace (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=4854.0)

[Savith9]

Thank you for the poison handbook link :)

[Flickerdart]

Save actions in combat by pre-poisoning a sack of darts or something (thrown weapons can get loads of attacks per round easily), and marking them with different colours of paint to distinguish which poisons they're bearing. Use knowledge skills to determine what the enemy's weakest ability score is ("dragons are clumsy" or "ogres are weak-willed" is a perfectly valid result) and then let it rip.

[Piggy Knowles]

Some thoughts...

1. Poison is a terrible cost sink if you don't have some way to make it yourself. The easiest way is to take the feat Hidden Talent (psionic minor creation) at first level, but there are others. Dragonmarks, poisonous companions or familiars, summon/binding spells, Animal Devotion, etc., all come to mind. Akal Saris' handbook goes into this a good bit.

2. I feel like there are two real options for making poison meaningful in combat. One is to force so many saving throws that even those with good saves will eventually fail. The other is to combine debuffing with DC boosts to make the DCs as dangerous as possible.

So, for example, maybe for a debuffer route I would go with a Paladin of Tyranny/Binder/Knight of the Sacred Seal. Paladin of Tyranny + Focalor's Aura of Sadness would give all nearby enemies a -4 to all of their saves. Toss on Death Devotion and Master of Poisons, plus some way to create poisons easily. Now every attack is forcing multiple saves at a -4 penalty to poison and negative levels.

For another poisoner-style build, here's a poison grenadier build I've toyed with:

Human, Rogue 1/Artificer 5/Trapsmith 1/Alchemist Savant 4/Uncanny Trickster 3/Ardent Dilettante 6/Swordsage 1

1- Able Learner, Least Dragonmark (Make Whole)
2- Scribe Scroll
3- Shape Soulmeld (Phase Cloak), Brew Potion
4- Craft Wondrous Item
5- Craft Magic Arms & Armor
6- Lesser Dragonmark (Minor Creation), Craft Wand
9- Practiced Spellcaster (Trapsmith)
12- Exceptional Artisan, Open Lesser Chakra (Shoulders)
15- Poison Spell
16- Dragonmark Adept (Quick Potion)
18- Craven

Ardent Dilettante and Uncanny Trickster both boost Artificer levels, while Alchemist Savant boosts Trapsmith.

The basic idea is a highly skilled build that gets into places, steals things or poisons enemies, and gets out. Phase Cloak to phase in and out of hard to reach places, Alchemist Savant's alchemical mixture ability to create alchemical poisons (meaning poison as a splash weapon to hit multiple enemies per shot, or poison combined with disabling attacks like tanglefoot bags). Spellvial gives even more potent options - spellvial a touch spell with the Poison Spell feat, combined with yet more poison or an alchemical item, to hit enemies with a touch spell, an alchemical bomb and poison all at once. Oh yeah, and sneak + Craven damage, too. With multiple throws and artificer buffing, can get a pretty decent number of attacks off at that.

I can Minor Creation poisons, or take actual scavenged poison and fabricate it into large quantities (handy for Poison Spell).

Dragonmark Adept was mostly because I wanted more uses of my Lesser Dragonmark, and I thought Quick Potion was a pretty fun spell that fit the theme of the character, but it could easily be swapped for Greater Dragonmark.