nd4 Con damage, no save, for 50n GP?

[Jeff the Green]

Icewild lichen paste, from Secrets of Sarlona, is a handy little item that removes fatigue. If you take more than one dose in 24 hours, however, it deals 1d4 Constitution damage per additional dose. It's also very small and thin, and so could easily be incorporated into a food where even a strong taste wouldn't be noticed, such as something spicy or fermented. Furthermore, it's not a poison and there's no save, so unless you're outright immune to Constitution damage you can't prevent it.

Why have I never seen this as an option, even in things like the poison handbook (http://www.brilliantgameologists.com/boards/?topic=4854.0)? And why did this never occur to the writers?

[Gale]

It doesn't state how much a single dose is. It could be a drop or an entire bottle of the stuff, the latter being much more noticeable.
It only does 1d4 constitution damage which isn't a lot. You would need them to consume around 4 or 5 doses to actually kill someone.
Really, it comes down to how much an actual dose is. If I were a DM I would probably rule that you couldn't sneak enough of the stuff into someone's food or drink to actual cause harm to them.

[Vedhin]

Because the Inspired suppress information from Secrets of Sarlona. That's why the various awesome things from said book are almost never mentioned. Run Jeff, lest the Inspired find you.

[Jeff the Green]

Because the Inspired suppress information from Secrets of Sarlona. That's why the various awesome things from said book are almost never mentioned. Run Jeff, lest the Inspired find you.

Actually, the lichen pastes are from the Tashana Tundra, inhabited by dwarves, shifters, and human barbarians. Granted they're implied to not be widely known outside of Tashana, but at the same time the two cities are stated to be home to numerous smugglers who would, one assumes, jump at the chance to sell them to assassins on the mainland.

Plus, that's only relevant in Eberron, whereas the crunch is generally understood to be available elsewhere.

[Darrin]

Why have I never seen this as an option, even in things like the poison handbook (http://www.brilliantgameologists.com/boards/?topic=4854.0)? And why did this never occur to the writers?

I've dabbled a bit with weaponizing drugs, but my main issue here would be how to deploy it... In my mind, if you're trying to trick someone into ingesting poison outside of combat, that's just a completely different type of game where stuff like ECL, CR, HP, Constitution, etc. are much less important than the context and narrative structure of what you're trying to accomplish. Who is the target, what is their daily routine, how is their food prepared... That's a completely different kind of challenge than "How do I reduce this creature's HP to zero as quickly as possible with a certain weapon/GP budget" or "How do I drive my enemies before me and hear the lamentations of their women?"

However, if I were looking at combat applications... the mister (Drow of the Underdark) lets you deploy ingested poisons with a 5' ranged touch attack (provokes an AoO), but I believe the target gets a Ref save DC 15 to avoid. But that assumes you can take a thick, chewy gum and create some sort of liquid extract that could be sprayed with a mister. I'm not sure how that happens without homebrewing a new substance.