Quick Poison Question

[Morof Stonehands]

How many poisons can be applied to a weapon at once? I know that putting poison on your weapon affects a single target, but can I apply one poison, then a second, then a third, etc. to my weapon?

[Snowbluff]

I've always assumed one, but Triple Capsule Retainers (CAv) may allow more.

[The Prince of Cats]

Pathfinder has an advanced rogue talent allowing two doses of poison on the same weapon, so that suggests that it's just one dose at a time in Pathfinder at least.

As far as I can tell D&D is vague enough on poisons that I am not sure they wanted PCs to use them...

[broodax]

Yeah, I was just checking up on this because I was wondering, "how can one shoot multiple arrows with poison in the same round?" But of course it's actually easy, because despite the fact that applying poison takes a standard action and provokes attacks of opportunity, and that there are feats that make it take less time, no one in their right mind cares. You just apply the poison during any downtime and it lasts forever until you hit something with that weapon.

Maybe this is a big deal for melee weapon users, but who poisons someone with a melee weapon anyway?

In any case, the rules are unclear, and I agree that the designers never really thought through PC use of poison at all.

[Zaq]

I don't think there's actually a specific rule forbidding using more than one at once, unless someone wants to pop in with a citation. Which, of course, puts us in "the rules don't say I CAN'T" territory, which is never comfortable.

To me, it comes down to action use. If you're allowing poisons to be applied way the hell in advance, then limiting it to one makes intuitive sense to me. If you're requiring that they be applied basically in combat, then I say as long as you spend the actions for each, go for broke.

You can also view it as a function of resource cost. If you're magically making your own poisons (Psionic Minor Creation being the most common method), and you thus have way more than you can ever functionally use, then it seems like too much to load up seven different kinds on one sword or one arrow. (I guess if you secrete your own, too, that would be a similar situation, magic or no magic; the defining part is that you have enough that you'll basically never run out.) If you're buying your poisons the old-fashioned way or otherwise have a pretty strictly limited supply, then if you want to burn through your doses that much faster, that's your business. Does that make sense?

But really, ask your GM. You're in territory that the rules don't directly cover, so you're going to need to rely on his or her judgment overall.

[Snowbluff]

Yeah, I was just checking up on this because I was wondering, "how can one shoot multiple arrows with poison in the same round?" But of course it's actually easy, because despite the fact that applying poison takes a standard action and provokes attacks of opportunity, and that there are feats that make it take less time, no one in their right mind cares. You just apply the poison during any downtime and it lasts forever until you hit something with that weapon.

Maybe this is a big deal for melee weapon users, but who poisons someone with a melee weapon anyway?

In any case, the rules are unclear, and I agree that the designers never really thought through PC use of poison at all.

Yeah, there's no limit to the number of arrows you can have poisoned. One of my favorite poison builds is Scout4/Ranger 4 (Urban Familiar) with a snake familiar.