PF poison

[Exirtadorri]

Is poison use evil in pathfinder like it was in 3.5?

[magotter]

Inherently, I don't think it's any more evil than, say, the good-aligned cleric casting Bestow Curse onto a foe. It's less the act itself and more in the context in which it is used. That is, the Action, not the Act, is what may or may not be evil.

Cursing/Poisoning the townsfolk of a sleepy hamlet is evil. Cursing/Poisoning the prick who's about to lay waste to the townsfolk of a sleepy hamlet... probably less so. Consider, too, that the Alcemist gains the ability to use Poison, and its not even listed as a clandestine-themed class (such as the rogue).

All that in mind, it also really depends more on the Setting, the local laws, the campaign's deities, your party, and the DM's opinions.

[Psyren]

Ultimate Campaign takes a very broad view:


In some lands, the use of poison is an instant blight on one’s honor. In others, its subtle and effective use might be a mark of the truly civilized person who wants to avert war and avoid innocent bloodshed.

It's worth noting though that in Golarion, it's primarily the evil (or at least questionable) lands that deal in the poison trade.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Just curious. Does PF even have extended alignment rules a la BoED/BoVD?

[Exirtadorri]

Just curious. Does PF even have extended alignment rules a la BoED/BoVD?

Not that i've seen.

As far as the clandestine classes...that's why I was asking. I was wondering because it's always been "using poison is evil" so I wanted to know what the world thought.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Say you poison a few arrows and during battle one of those arrows happens to miss. Well some time later an innocent person may come along and pick up that arrow and prick themselves on the arrow head. Or there might be some weapons you poisoned but end up selling because you find something better forgetting to clean it first. With an inhaled poison the container could accidentally break exposing innocent people. Someone takes food off another guys plate and he gets a dose on ingested poison.(hey try the shrimp its wonderful). Although the rules don't cover it there is secondary poisoning where you're poisoned by eating something that was poisoned itself

So the use of poisons is considered evil because of the great potential for unintended harm. I'm not saying this is correct I'm just giving a better explanation.
Poison being illegal doesn't help as you might intentionally mislabel the vials so your not caught carrying illegal items.

[Psyren]

You could make that argument about lots of things that aren't evil though; A commoner or child could stumble across your vials of alchemist's fire or liquid ice for instance, and those are both easier to make than many poisons. Some poisons are relatively benign too, like sleep poison, or the brief memory loss caused by Raktavarna poison.

[Lord Vukodlak]

You could make that argument about lots of things that aren't evil though; A commoner or child could stumble across your vials of alchemist's fire or liquid ice for instance, and those are both easier to make than many poisons. Some poisons are relatively benign too, like sleep poison, or the brief memory loss caused by Raktavarna poison.

If you throw a vial of alchemist's fire it breaks so its not like they get lost and sit around for days waiting for someone to find them. Its also reasonable they need to be thrown with great force otherwise simply being tripped could break the vials when you fall down. While someone could hurt themselves on accident handling your alchemical vials the risk of unintended harm is much lower then with poisons. Benign poisons are only benign if the situation is benign suffering memory loss or going unconscious in the woods would be very bad. You could forget that you'd applied poison to a weapon your selling but you won't forget the alchemists fire your selling is alchemists fire and presumably the buyer would know he's buying alchemist fire.

[Exirtadorri]

If you throw a vial of alchemist's fire it breaks so its not like they get lost and sit around for days waiting for someone to find them. Its also reasonable they need to be thrown with great force otherwise simply being tripped could break the vials when you fall down. While someone could hurt themselves on accident handling your alchemical vials the risk of unintended harm is much lower then with poisons. Benign poisons are only benign if the situation is benign suffering memory loss or going unconscious in the woods would be very bad. You could forget that you'd applied poison to a weapon your selling but you won't forget the alchemists fire your selling is alchemists fire and presumably the buyer would know he's buying alchemist fire.

In my games if someone is a gunslinger or carrying things like that, every time they get crit, fall, fail a relfex save or crit fumble they have to save or else things go...KABOOOOM!

[Kelb_Panthera]

Not that i've seen.

As far as the clandestine classes...that's why I was asking. I was wondering because it's always been "using poison is evil" so I wanted to know what the world thought.

Barring such, I'd have to say it's a DM call. Unless you are the DM, he or she is the person to ask, not us. If you are the DM, this is one of those points of contention and you'll probably save yourself a lot of headache to just go ahead and rule "not evil."

[Psyren]

If you throw a vial of alchemist's fire it breaks so its not like they get lost and sit around for days waiting for someone to find them.

But you can leave it lying around, or sell it to irresponsible buyers, give it away to kids etc. You are still ethically at fault in those situations but the article itself is not evil.