Purple worm poison

[Spacehamster]

Hey playgrounders!

So I'm sure all know how awesome this poison is. But my question is: how could you as a high level pc get a reliable access to this poison by milking purple worms. Them beeing gargantuan killing machines might make it hard to keep a purple worm farm to be sure. :p

Also about milking for poison it says you get 1 dose from a corpse, should not a gargantuan carcass hold more then 1 dose you think?

Spacehamster to infinity and beyond!

[golentan]

Hey playgrounders!

So I'm sure all know how awesome this poison is. But my question is: how could you as a high level pc get a reliable access to this poison by milking purple worms. Them beeing gargantuan killing machines might make it hard to keep a purple worm farm to be sure. :p

Also about milking for poison it says you get 1 dose from a corpse, should not a gargantuan carcass hold more then 1 dose you think?

Spacehamster to infinity and beyond!

They're not mindless in this edition, right? Throw down some magical friendship, block off your territory with signs indicating most absurd danger, enter at your own risk signs to keep humans out, ludicrously oversized concrete walls sunk deep, deep into the ground and high into the air to keep worms in, import tons of cows and have yourself a farm.

[Spacehamster]

They're not mindless in this edition, right? Throw down some magical friendship, block off your territory with signs indicating most absurd danger, enter at your own risk signs to keep humans out, ludicrously oversized concrete walls sunk deep, deep into the ground and high into the air to keep worms in, import tons of cows and have yourself a farm.

Hmm think they have 1 INT does that not make them mindless? :)

[golentan]

Hmm think they have 1 INT does that not make them mindless? :)

Nope. Just exceedingly stupid. Unless they have immunity to being charmed or dominated or something in their statblock, you should be able to manage something. I think you'll have to write a homebrew spell for it, but it should be doable.

[Eslin]

Or just turn into one and milk yourself.

[golentan]

Or just turn into one and milk yourself.

If ever I needed a Takei reference, it was here.

[Spacehamster]

Or just turn into one and milk yourself.

My character is a paladin and thus does not believe in masturbation... Ow wait you meant milking of poison... I'm just gonna go stand over there. *awkward face* :p

[golentan]

My character is a paladin and thus does not believe in masturbation... Ow wait you meant milking of poison... I'm just gonna go stand over there. *awkward face* :p

Man, what kind of messed up oath do you follow? Poison's okay but blowing off stress in your downtime isn't?

[Spacehamster]

Man, what kind of messed up oath do you follow? Poison's okay but blowing off stress in your downtime isn't?

Vengence paladin that will have 4 lvls assassin and 4 levels lore bard. :p

[golentan]

Vengence paladin that will have 4 lvls assassin and 4 levels lore bard. :p

And where does it ban happy fun times, huh? Fight the Greater Evil, No Mercy for the Wicked, By Any Means Necessary, and Restitution are the tenets.

[Spacehamster]

And where does it ban happy fun times, huh? Fight the Greater Evil, No Mercy for the Wicked, By Any Means Necessary, and Restitution are the tenets.

He also added "thou shalt not touch thine pee-pee, thou shalt instead have the purdy ladies do that for you!" :D

[Eslin]

Why wouldn't poison be ok for a paladin?

[golentan]

Why wouldn't poison be ok for a paladin?

Paladin of Devotion requires Honor, and poison is pretty much the classic example of fighting dishonorably. Whether it deserves to be on that list is a separate question.

[Inevitability]

Why wouldn't poison be ok for a paladin?

Because it is considered 'unhonorable'. Oh, and 3.5, in one of its greatest moments of stupidity, declared poison capital-e Evil.

[pwykersotz]

Because it is considered 'unhonorable'. Oh, and 3.5, in one of its greatest moments of stupidity, declared poison capital-e Evil.

Yeah, I'm okay with a generalization that poison is evil, it is the slow (generally), painful, premeditated demise of a creature who cannot have a change of heart and beg for mercy. But I dislike poison being Evil.

[Eslin]

Yeah, I'm okay with a generalization that poison is evil, it is the slow (generally), painful, premeditated demise of a creature who cannot have a change of heart and beg for mercy. But I dislike poison being Evil.
No it isn't. Most poisons do their damage instantly, some do no damage at all and let you capture an enemy without having to harm them and in this context we're talking purple worm poison which is definitely instant. You're not doing anything but making your swings do more damage.


Paladin of Devotion requires Honor, and poison is pretty much the classic example of fighting dishonorably. Whether it deserves to be on that list is a separate question.
How is it dishonourable? It's just +xd6 bonus damage on attacks, it's no different than smiting.

[Jakinbandw]

No it isn't. Most poisons do their damage instantly, some do no damage at all and let you capture an enemy without having to harm them and in this context we're talking purple worm poison which is definitely instant. You're not doing anything but making your swings do more damage.


How is it dishonourable? It's just +xd6 bonus damage on attacks, it's no different than smiting.

I think historically it was the idea that if two people fought, it meant both were likely to die. If the weaker fighter managed to land a scratch, that scratch could slowly kill the fighter who was stronger and better.

Put it another way. Imagine if all the goblins in the game had a poison which went something like: If you hit an opponent and do damage, they die in 1d4 days unless they make a con save; dc 25.

Now imagine how it would feel as a 20th level fighter to go against 5 goblins. Most players would be in a rage about how unfair it was. Even if they could use the poison as well, it wouldn't matter because there are an unlimited number of foes, and one lucky hit by any of them kills the pc. But if the PC uses the poison and loses, then they are still dead. It's a lose lose situation for the pcs.

[Xetheral]

How is it dishonourable? It's just +xd6 bonus damage on attacks, it's no different than smiting.

Probably because many people consider the "honorability" of a given action based on it's real-world use (where possible) rather than how the game system mechanically models that action.

[Doug Lampert]

Probably because many people consider the "honorability" of a given action based on it's real-world use (where possible) rather than how the game system mechanically models that action.

Probably. But I'd say that this is a mistake, the game representation is largely how the thing works in the game world, that's the important type of use for what your player's characters are doing. I'm not playing Papers and Paychecks, I determine game world actions morality based on how they work in the game-world.

Historically poisons are considered dishonorable for very good reasons. Note that no side in WWII used them and that was basically the poster child for all out anything goes style warfare. But even as recently as WWII, the poisons available for the most part wouldn't actually kill all that many, they'd simply inflict permanent disabling injuries, they hurt both the winner and loser, they're hard to use and not all that effective.

It's a move so damaging yet at the same time so ineffective that even in particularly vicious warfare it's not really a good idea. And that's fairly modern, pre-modern the poisons you could put on a weapon and expect ANYTHING to come of it within less than 48 hours come down to a list of curare, curare, curare, and just possibly curare. And hunters using darts with curare STILL need to put dozens of darts into a 12lb monkey to have any meaningful effect.

Giving this 1 HP of non-lethal damage per hit would be VASTLY overstating its effectiveness. More like 1d3 additional damage on a critical hit and failed fortitude save. Other poisons were attempts to make the wound infect, and typically also corroded the metal of the weapon they were on.

Wonderful, the only point to using them was the vague hope that your foe would die or suffer days after the fight was over. Yeah, that's dishonorable and almost always evil, it doesn't help you win, it just increases the total death and misery.

D&D has poisons that are actually usefully effective as weapons, as such there's no particular reason they should be considered dishonorable, something non-lethal like Drow poison should be considered ideal for a Paladin or other highly honorable sort. Heck, drow poison is VASTLY better than anything modern anesthesiologists have available, we have nothing close to that safe and effective.

[Xetheral]

Probably. But I'd say that this is a mistake, the game representation is largely how the thing works in the game world, that's the important type of use for what your player's characters are doing. I'm not playing Papers and Paychecks, I determine game world actions morality based on how they work in the game-world.

Historically poisons are considered dishonorable for very good reasons. Note that no side in WWII used them and that was basically the poster child for all out anything goes style warfare. But even as recently as WWII, the poisons available for the most part wouldn't actually kill all that many, they'd simply inflict permanent disabling injuries, they hurt both the winner and loser, they're hard to use and not all that effective.

It's a move so damaging yet at the same time so ineffective that even in particularly vicious warfare it's not really a good idea. And that's fairly modern, pre-modern the poisons you could put on a weapon and expect ANYTHING to come of it within less than 48 hours come down to a list of curare, curare, curare, and just possibly curare. And hunters using darts with curare STILL need to put dozens of darts into a 12lb monkey to have any meaningful effect.

Giving this 1 HP of non-lethal damage per hit would be VASTLY overstating its effectiveness. More like 1d3 additional damage on a critical hit and failed fortitude save. Other poisons were attempts to make the wound infect, and typically also corroded the metal of the weapon they were on.

Wonderful, the only point to using them was the vague hope that your foe would die or suffer days after the fight was over. Yeah, that's dishonorable and almost always evil, it doesn't help you win, it just increases the total death and misery.

D&D has poisons that are actually usefully effective as weapons, as such there's no particular reason they should be considered dishonorable, something non-lethal like Drow poison should be considered ideal for a Paladin or other highly honorable sort. Heck, drow poison is VASTLY better than anything modern anesthesiologists have available, we have nothing close to that safe and effective.

I certainly wouldn't call it a mistake... it's simply a different way of look at the role of the game mechanics. Some consider the rules to be a model, and in general it is inappropriate to draw conclusions about whatever you are modeling (e.g. the game world) from the parameters of the chosen model. Others consider the rules to be the primary source of information on the natural laws of the D&D universe, and for them it's just as inappropriate to draw conclusions about the game world based on real-world observations. Neither approach is superior, so I don't think either can be called a mistake.

[pwykersotz]

No it isn't. Most poisons do their damage instantly, some do no damage at all and let you capture an enemy without having to harm them and in this context we're talking purple worm poison which is definitely instant. You're not doing anything but making your swings do more damage.


How is it dishonourable? It's just +xd6 bonus damage on attacks, it's no different than smiting.


Snip for space...
D&D has poisons that are actually usefully effective as weapons, as such there's no particular reason they should be considered dishonorable, something non-lethal like Drow poison should be considered ideal for a Paladin or other highly honorable sort. Heck, drow poison is VASTLY better than anything modern anesthesiologists have available, we have nothing close to that safe and effective.

There are many ways to go about this, but the extremes are twofold. You can take D&D as trying to model reality and use it as a baseline, or you can take D&D as a new world and begin extrapolations from the basepoint. Both are fun to play. However, just as RAW arguers say that it's the only thing we can discuss since table rules vary, so I default to the easiest and most common way to play, which I perceive to be the first one. The second requires worldbuilding on a grand scale, and seldom offers as much nuance or intrigue unless an extreme amount of work and detail has been put in, or unless the DM is truly extraordinary. Poisons and intrigue and shifty rogues are rich with lore and stories. There are lots of adventure hooks to draw from and both player and DM know the score.

In the same way, I would assume that Drow poison is neither safe NOR effective. First, a save negates. It has about about a 40% success rate to knock someone unconscious assuming no high stats or proficiencies. That's RAW. In terms of the safety, most things are whitewashed and abstracted to allow the game to go on. However, in a deep roleplay game, I could definitely see an inexperienced poisoner thinking they would merely put the Count to sleep for a while, but gave him too much and now he's in a coma instead, or perhaps dead. This is total extrapolation based on interpretation of the first extreme, but it's easy and fun to play because we can accept and understand poisons from a real world perspective.

So first, I would say that it's not a mistake to do it either way, and that the playstyle of having D&D model reality as much as possible is the most common baseline, and second I would say that if there is no subtlety or context difference between Radiant damage, Poison, and Fire, there's a good deal missing from the game. It doesn't have to be the real world difference, but there should be something deeper than the abstraction of the rules.

/opinion

[Eslin]

I think historically it was the idea that if two people fought, it meant both were likely to die. If the weaker fighter managed to land a scratch, that scratch could slowly kill the fighter who was stronger and better.

Put it another way. Imagine if all the goblins in the game had a poison which went something like: If you hit an opponent and do damage, they die in 1d4 days unless they make a con save; dc 25.

Now imagine how it would feel as a 20th level fighter to go against 5 goblins. Most players would be in a rage about how unfair it was. Even if they could use the poison as well, it wouldn't matter because there are an unlimited number of foes, and one lucky hit by any of them kills the pc. But if the PC uses the poison and loses, then they are still dead. It's a lose lose situation for the pcs.

Except that's not how poison works. Sure, it might work like that in the real world, but poisons clearly don't work like that in D&D.

What I've gotten from this thread is poisons in D&D are in general not evil nor dishonourable, they're just sometimes treated that way because people confuse them with slow acting real world poisons. Does that about sum it up?

[Xetheral]

What I've gotten from this thread is poisons in D&D are in general not evil nor dishonourable, they're just sometimes treated that way because people confuse them with slow acting real world poisons. Does that about sum it up?

I don't think there is any confusion--it's simply a philosophical difference in how one approaches the game mechanics.

[Eslin]

I don't think there is any confusion--it's simply a philosophical difference in how one approaches the game mechanics.

Ok, that part's a little confusing. Would you ever treat a player putting purple worm poison on their sword to deal a bunch of extra d6s with each swing as morally any different from, say, a magic sword with +xd6 fire damage?

[Jakinbandw]

Ok, that part's a little confusing. Would you ever treat a player putting purple worm poison on their sword to deal a bunch of extra d6s with each swing as morally any different from, say, a magic sword with +xd6 fire damage?

Of course. One is poisoning him, the other is that you're keeping him warm for the rest of his life...:smalltongue:

[Dalebert]

Build a man a fire and he'll stay warm for the rest of the night.
Set a man on fire and he'll stay warm for the rest of his life.

[Xetheral]

Ok, that part's a little confusing. Would you ever treat a player putting purple worm poison on their sword to deal a bunch of extra d6s with each swing as morally any different from, say, a magic sword with +xd6 fire damage?

Definitely. I don't subscribe to the idea that poison is capital-E Evil, but some fraction of the npcs will consider it to be dishonorable and morally repugnant.

And yes, I consider the lack of mechanical difference between "dishonorable" poison and "permissible" flaming swords to be a weakness of the model. If the characters become involved enough with poison that the dissonance starts to detract from the game, I'd add house rules to flesh out the poison mechanics.

[pwykersotz]

Ok, that part's a little confusing. Would you ever treat a player putting purple worm poison on their sword to deal a bunch of extra d6s with each swing as morally any different from, say, a magic sword with +xd6 fire damage?

You probably missed my last line, that's okay, I forgive you. :smallwink:

I mentioned that I would say that if there is no subtlety or context difference between Radiant damage, Poison, and Fire, there's a good deal missing from the game. It doesn't have to be the real world difference, but there should be something deeper than the abstraction of the rules. It makes the game more immersive and, in my opinion, more interesting.

[Eslin]

Definitely. I don't subscribe to the idea that poison is capital-E Evil, but some fraction of the npcs will consider it to be dishonorable and morally repugnant.

And yes, I consider the lack of mechanical difference between "dishonorable" poison and "permissible" flaming swords to be a weakness of the model. If the characters become involved enough with poison that the dissonance starts to detract from the game, I'd add house rules to flesh out the poison mechanics.

Ok. And if you were using the base rules (which are the usual frame of reference for discussion here) would you be amenable to having said npcs get over that after someone points out that poison use is no different from smiting in its effects?

[golentan]

Ok. And if you were using the base rules (which are the usual frame of reference for discussion here) would you be amenable to having said npcs get over that after someone points out that poison use is no different from smiting in its effects?

Depends how much more painful poison might be, how horrifying the deaths it causes. If the orc dies screaming as their eyes boil from their sockets and their lungs disintegrate causing them to choke on their own blood, that's arguably more horrifying than fire, which is more horrifying than being stabbed, and so on.

[Dalebert]

Depends how much more painful poison might be, how horrifying the deaths it causes. If the orc dies screaming as their eyes boil from their sockets and their lungs disintegrate causing them to choke on their own blood, that's arguably more horrifying than fire, which is more horrifying than being stabbed, and so on.

That's a really big "depends". Fire is pretty consistently seen to be one of the most painful things humans have experienced and can even imagine. There's a reason Hell is a place where you burn forever. So if poison's evil because it's painful, I'm going to say fire is evil as well.

The whole "poison is automatically evil" thing always seemed rather arbitrary to me as well.

[Eslin]

Depends how much more painful poison might be, how horrifying the deaths it causes. If the orc dies screaming as their eyes boil from their sockets and their lungs disintegrate causing them to choke on their own blood, that's arguably more horrifying than fire, which is more horrifying than being stabbed, and so on.

I've been burned and been bitten by a redback, the burn was significantly worse in terms of pain despite doing less overall damage (spider hospitalised me, burn just required a doctors visit and caused a lot of pain) . I'm not familiar with any poison that causes eyes to boil, but from what I've felt taking an equal amount of fire damage is at least as painful as poison would be.

[MeeposFire]

I think it is the internal vs the external. All the "honorable" types of killing I can think of involve dealing external damage (fire, weapons, etc) whereas most of the dishonorable (or possibly all) types are internally damaging such as poison or disease. Corrupting the inside of the body is much more disturbing for many than external damage. Could be a possible reason.

[golentan]

I've been burned and been bitten by a redback, the burn was significantly worse in terms of pain despite doing less overall damage (spider hospitalised me, burn just required a doctors visit and caused a lot of pain) . I'm not familiar with any poison that causes eyes to boil, but from what I've felt taking an equal amount of fire damage is at least as painful as poison would be.

Quoted from Warhammer 40k on the topic of dark eldar and tyranid venoms.

It's a fantasy world, and it's the best/worst poison in said fantasy world, it's kind of up to the DM, and it seems to me that the fluff is open to whatever. The mechanics of poison shouldn't just be +xd6 instant damage if it's supposed to work on the same principles as in reality (it should cause sickening and possibly delayed damage), but damage that it does deal is open to DM interpretation as to how it manifests.

And there's a lot of damage there.

[Eslin]

Quoted from Warhammer 40k on the topic of dark eldar and tyranid venoms.

It's a fantasy world, and it's the best/worst poison in said fantasy world, it's kind of up to the DM, and it seems to me that the fluff is open to whatever. The mechanics of poison shouldn't just be +xd6 instant damage if it's supposed to work on the same principles as in reality (it should cause sickening and possibly delayed damage), but damage that it does deal is open to DM interpretation as to how it manifests.

And there's a lot of damage there.

Why would it work on the same principles as in reality? Pretty much nothing else in D&D does, it's just vaguely associated. Poison in reality works slowly, poison in D&D works instantly. Just as bows apparently require no strength, crossbows require no winding, arming swords are longswords, studded leather is apparently in some way more useful than regular leather, wood and metal shields are defensively identical, a quarterstaff can be used one handed with a shield, padded armour makes you worse at sneaking than a chain shirt does, a halfling can dual wield human sized lances on dogback, you can attack with the haft of a pike shortly after attacking with the tip and halberds somehow can't deal piercing damage despite ending in a spike. That was just what was off the top of my head and only from the weapons and armour section, but you get the point - pretty much everything in D&D has at best a passing resemblance to how things actually work.

[Xetheral]

How is it dishonourable? It's just +xd6 bonus damage on attacks, it's no different than smiting.Probably because many people consider the "honorability" of a given action based on it's real-world use (where possible) rather than how the game system mechanically models that action.

Ok, that part's a little confusing. Would you ever treat a player putting purple worm poison on their sword to deal a bunch of extra d6s with each swing as morally any different from, say, a magic sword with +xd6 fire damage?

Definitely. I don't subscribe to the idea that poison is capital-E Evil, but some fraction of the npcs will consider it to be dishonorable and morally repugnant.

And yes, I consider the lack of mechanical difference between "dishonorable" poison and "permissible" flaming swords to be a weakness of the model. If the characters become involved enough with poison that the dissonance starts to detract from the game, I'd add house rules to flesh out the poison mechanics.

Ok. And if you were using the base rules (which are the usual frame of reference for discussion here) would you be amenable to having said npcs get over that after someone points out that poison use is no different from smiting in its effects?

(Nested quotes provided for context due to the intervening posts.)

No, in my games the npcs wouldn't understand the comparison because, in the game-mechanics-as-a-model approach, the effects of each method are quite different in the game world... smiting is destroying something by calling upon divine power, whereas poison is a toxic substance introduced into the body. In this approach the mechanics are invisible to the NPCs, so the fact that the base rules identically model extra poison damage and extra fire damage doesn't enter into it.

Now, one could have a philosophical conversation with an NPC about how the consequences of smiting and poison are similar in that they both make things dead, but that conversation could be had about any two lethal means.

I know you look at it completely differently... it's another facet of our wildly divergent DMing styles. But both of our approaches are reasonable, and, under the one you don't subscribe to, it makes perfectly good sense for poison to be seen as dishonorable or immoral.

[MaxWilson]

Probably. But I'd say that this is a mistake, the game representation is largely how the thing works in the game world, that's the important type of use for what your player's characters are doing. I'm not playing Papers and Paychecks, I determine game world actions morality based on how they work in the game-world.

Historically poisons are considered dishonorable for very good reasons. Note that no side in WWII used them and that was basically the poster child for all out anything goes style warfare. But even as recently as WWII, the poisons available for the most part wouldn't actually kill all that many, they'd simply inflict permanent disabling injuries, they hurt both the winner and loser, they're hard to use and not all that effective.

It's a move so damaging yet at the same time so ineffective that even in particularly vicious warfare it's not really a good idea. And that's fairly modern, pre-modern the poisons you could put on a weapon and expect ANYTHING to come of it within less than 48 hours come down to a list of curare, curare, curare, and just possibly curare. And hunters using darts with curare STILL need to put dozens of darts into a 12lb monkey to have any meaningful effect.

Giving this 1 HP of non-lethal damage per hit would be VASTLY overstating its effectiveness. More like 1d3 additional damage on a critical hit and failed fortitude save. Other poisons were attempts to make the wound infect, and typically also corroded the metal of the weapon they were on.

Wonderful, the only point to using them was the vague hope that your foe would die or suffer days after the fight was over. Yeah, that's dishonorable and almost always evil, it doesn't help you win, it just increases the total death and misery.

D&D has poisons that are actually usefully effective as weapons, as such there's no particular reason they should be considered dishonorable, something non-lethal like Drow poison should be considered ideal for a Paladin or other highly honorable sort. Heck, drow poison is VASTLY better than anything modern anesthesiologists have available, we have nothing close to that safe and effective.

Doug, I love your posts. This explains a ton (especially the numbers about curare lethality relative to D&D poison). Thank you, this will enhance my games.

[golentan]

No matter how it's spun, it's a bug, not a feature. If it's just +xd6 damage it's not acting like poison in real life or any of the fiction it draws most of its inspiration from, and doing neither doesn't really fit the spirit of the game. Maybe if the poison damage could incapacitate the target immediately but left a window of minutes to days to administer antitoxin to prevent death, or something similar. But expressing it as "It's just +xd6 damage so it's no different than fire or any other way to kill your enemy" to my mind misses the point of poisons. Whether they're evil or not is a separate matter, but poisons should be different. They should weaken you, kill you slow, take you down from the inside. Poison isn't the weapon of upright knights in shining armor, it's the weapon of rogues and sneaks, bring the enemy down to your level by weakening them over time, until you can deliver another dose or another blow. Strike once and retreat avoid risking your own life in extended combat. It's a way to gain leverage: you've been poisoned, I have the antidote if you give me what I want, but you only have a few hours to decide before the metabolic chain reaction becomes irreversible. It's a way to attack someone through their food, their air, or a pinprick so small they may not notice until they break into a cold sweat. It's not a one minute buff: apply oil of Flame weapon, ignite sword, apply burning weapon of death as quickly and often as possible before it wears off, it's apply it to weapon, apply weapon to enemy, fall back and wait for effect, repeat if necessary. Poison is the weapon that even the mighty fear, a weapon you can't oppose by strength of arms, because it attacks the weakness intrinsic to the human condition.

It's a bug, not a feature.

[Eslin]

(Nested quotes provided for context due to the intervening posts.)

No, in my games the npcs wouldn't understand the comparison because, in the game-mechanics-as-a-model approach, the effects of each method are quite different in the game world... smiting is destroying something by calling upon divine power, whereas poison is a toxic substance introduced into the body. In this approach the mechanics are invisible to the NPCs, so the fact that the base rules identically model extra poison damage and extra fire damage doesn't enter into it.

Now, one could have a philosophical conversation with an NPC about how the consequences of smiting and poison are similar in that they both make things dead, but that conversation could be had about any two lethal means.

I know you look at it completely differently... it's another facet of our wildly divergent DMing styles. But both of our approaches are reasonable, and, under the one you don't subscribe to, it makes perfectly good sense for poison to be seen as dishonorable or immoral.

Ok, fair enough. Makes sense, I'll remember to jot it down in my illogical things that are nonetheless immersive because people would do them category.

[Forum Explorer]

Ok, that part's a little confusing. Would you ever treat a player putting purple worm poison on their sword to deal a bunch of extra d6s with each swing as morally any different from, say, a magic sword with +xd6 fire damage?

I'd put them both as 'dishonorable'. Like if two paladins were fighting a duel and one pulled out a flaming sword it's be called dishonorable. Of course honor only applies to your peers and betters. It's perfectly acceptable to use such tactics against rogue giants, rampaging dragons, and hordes of orcs.

[Maxilian]

My character is a paladin and thus does not believe in masturbation... Ow wait you meant milking of poison... I'm just gonna go stand over there. *awkward face* :p

Wait... your paladin is ok with mass murder but is not ok with masturbation? what kind of paladin are you?! :smalleek:

[golentan]

Wait... your paladin is ok with mass murder but is not ok with masturbation? what kind of paladin are you?! :smalleek:

I know we had several posts on this, but I think it bears repeating. Sure it's fine to not... yeah. Know several people who have vows of chastity that extend to the self, or asexual, or whatever. But the implication was that somehow paladinhood banned the act in question, and that it wasn't a vow of chastity or a lack of interest...

[Spacehamster]

Wait... your paladin is ok with mass murder but is not ok with masturbation? what kind of paladin are you?! :smalleek:

Said nowhere that he is okay with mass murder? :)
And his stance on poison is that weapon poison is humane cause it makes the bad guys dead faster, thus less suffering. He would never use the "poison water supply/ food supply" type of poisons tho as he sees that as cowardly.

And the no masturbation thing were mostly a joke when a poster(can't rem name) suggested to turn into one and "milk" myself. :p altho now I kinda feel like playing like a sexually frustrated half orc paladin! xD

Spacehamster to infinity and beyond!

[Dalebert]

Poison is the weapon that even the mighty fear, a weapon you can't oppose by strength of arms, because it attacks the weakness intrinsic to the human condition.

Snipped for brevity and netiquette, but you make some very good points for why poison has a reputation as a weapon of evil. I still think a fictional instantaneous poison bypasses all of that almost completely.


I'd put them both as 'dishonorable'. Like if two paladins were fighting a duel and one pulled out a flaming sword it's be called dishonorable. Of course honor only applies to your peers and betters. It's perfectly acceptable to use such tactics against rogue giants, rampaging dragons, and hordes of orcs.

Agreed. I can see why poison my get considered dishonorable. That's different from evil though. For instance, I could see someone who's very motivated toward good but has an end-justifies-the-means mentality, like a vigilante type using poison as long as the person deserved it (in their sincere opinion). Like, this tyrant is about to pronounce executions of a bunch of innocent people. However we have to do it, he needs to die. It's not evil in his eyes to use poison, but the very lawful and honorable guy in the party would likely disagree.

It really starts to venture into the broader argument of trying to simplify human motivations into 9 possible categories of alignment. I just had yet another DM declare alignments irrelevant in response to an intense argument about whether a character was following his declared alignment. They both had two very different interpretations of what the alignment meant/allowed/etc.

[Eslin]

Snipped for brevity and netiquette, but you make some very good points for why poison has a reputation as a weapon of evil. I still think a fictional instantaneous poison bypasses all of that almost completely.



Agreed. I can see why poison my get considered dishonorable. That's different from evil though. For instance, I could see someone who's very motivated toward good but has an end-justifies-the-means mentality, like a vigilante type using poison as long as the person deserved it (in their sincere opinion). Like, this tyrant is about to pronounce executions of a bunch of innocent people. However we have to do it, he needs to die. It's not evil in his eyes to use poison, but the very lawful and honorable guy in the party would likely disagree.

It really starts to venture into the broader argument of trying to simplify human motivations into 9 possible categories of alignment. I just had yet another DM declare alignments irrelevant in response to an intense argument about whether a character was following his declared alignment. They both had two very different interpretations of what the alignment meant/allowed/etc.

You're still treating poison as somewhat of an unsavoury means. D&D instant wound poison (like, say, purple worm) is just a damage bonus on each swing - you don't need to have an EJtM attitude to use it any more than you do a magic sword.

[Dalebert]

You're still treating poison as somewhat of an unsavoury means. D&D instant wound poison (like, say, purple worm) is just a damage bonus on each swing - you don't need to have an EJtM attitude to use it any more than you do a magic sword.

Did you just miss this part of my post altogether?


Snipped for brevity and netiquette, but you make some very good points for why poison has a reputation as a weapon of evil. I still think a fictional instantaneous poison bypasses all of that almost completely.

[golentan]

Snipped for brevity and netiquette, but you make some very good points for why poison has a reputation as a weapon of evil. I still think a fictional instantaneous poison bypasses all of that almost completely.


I'm saying that's why a fictional instantaneous poison ignores the things that make poison poison in 99% of fiction.

I wasn't making the case for evil, I was making the case for poison acting like it's poisonous instead of just another weapon buff!

[Yagyujubei]

@eslin: it's all in the context. Historically, good guys don't use poison. That's something reserved for assassins and shady characters. WotC has in the past designated poison as evil and Evil in the past, etc. etc.

imho your mind set that "strictly mechanically x is the same as x so it should be dealt with as such" takes the entire soul from the game. if you want to play a bare bones combat simulator with no roleplaying then there have to be better options than DnD.

[Spacehamster]

@eslin: it's all in the context. Historically, good guys don't use poison. That's something reserved for assassins and shady characters. WotC has in the past designated poison as evil and Evil in the past, etc. etc.

imho your mind set that "strictly mechanically x is the same as x so it should be dealt with as such" takes the entire soul from the game. if you want to play a bare bones combat simulator with no roleplaying then there have to be better options than DnD.

Like I said my pc would never use poison in the way of poisoning food and the like but he has the practical opinion that using it in combat is humane since it kills the bad guys quicker so they have to suffer less. :)

[Yagyujubei]

Like I said my pc would never use poison in the way of poisoning food and the like but he has the practical opinion that using it in combat is humane since it kills the bad guys quicker so they have to suffer less. :)

yeah I'm not saying paladins cant use it, vengeance in particular seem like they wouldn't have any problems with it, but people were using devotion oath as an example, and I really do think poison wouldn't fit with a devotion paladin.

as for purple worm milking...i really think your best bet would be to have someone polymorph(or whatever spell would do it) a familiar or friendly creature into the worm so you could safely extract the poison and then release the spell. or just get your DM to house rule that you can get more than one dose off a dead one and go slaying.

my group ripped the stinger off of one in our game and he let us roll nature/survival to see how many doses we could get.

[Myzz]

comparing D&D poison to Real World poison as shown is at best problematic... what if we just said Toxin?

There are definitely poisonous gases/toxins that cause instant suffering and some are instantly debilitating without causing pain... the mechanism for those issues in D&D are your Constitution and HP pool: your ability to resist then soak those effects.

Those arguing that poison is not evil:

If an army defending its nation releases poisonous gas on an invading army, is that evil? or just good tactical sense? Your answer may reveal a lot about your own character... Those affected are soldiers in this instance and not innocents..

[GiantOctopodes]

Hey playgrounders!

So I'm sure all know how awesome this poison is. But my question is: how could you as a high level pc get a reliable access to this poison by milking purple worms. Them beeing gargantuan killing machines might make it hard to keep a purple worm farm to be sure. :p

Also about milking for poison it says you get 1 dose from a corpse, should not a gargantuan carcass hold more then 1 dose you think?

Spacehamster to infinity and beyond!

True Polymorph is the way to go. You need something with a CR or level of 15 or higher, but once obtained, True Polymorph specifically states it retains the personality of the original creature, so if the creature in question is loyal, it remains loyal. A Warlock's Thrall or a Necromancer's Controlled Undead of the appropriate level are great choices, but far from the only viable targets.

[Myzz]

True Polymorph is the way to go. You need something with a CR or level of 15 or higher, but once obtained, True Polymorph specifically states it retains the personality of the original creature, so if the creature in question is loyal, it remains loyal. A Warlock's Thrall or a Necromancer's Controlled Undead of the appropriate level are great choices, but far from the only viable targets.

Or your familiar...

[GiantOctopodes]

Or your familiar...

Your familiar has no CR, but it also has no level, and as such, would not qualify.

[Myzz]

Your familiar has no CR, but it also has no level, and as such, would not qualify.

doh forgot that part about true, was thinking it was based on caster level not target creatures level...

thanks

[Vogonjeltz]

Or just turn into one and milk yourself.

For fairly obvious reasons, this is impossible.


You're still treating poison as somewhat of an unsavoury means. D&D instant wound poison (like, say, purple worm) is just a damage bonus on each swing - you don't need to have an EJtM attitude to use it any more than you do a magic sword.

The problem here is that you're treating poison as nothing more than a d6 die roll, which doesn't address what it is but only how it impacts your dice as a meta-game construct.

The reason anything is considered good or evil or carries any other intrinsic connotation has literally nothing to do with the dice involved. So any approach that only looks at the dice involved is doomed to failure. Instead look at the meaning of poison, not simply the damage dice impact which actually carries no meaning at all.

To actually get to the root of the question:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PoisonIsEvil

That does a fair job of explaining it, and at the same time covers the ground of those societies in which poison is viewed neutrally.

I'd argue the question of dishonorable largely applies to the use of the poison. If both parties in a duel are openly acknowledged as using poisoned weapons (so that first blood becomes all the more crucial), then it is not dishonorable. However, if one party is using poison secretly to basically cheat, that's dishonorable. By that same token, it's pretty obvious when one is using a Flaming sword, so if doing so was a violation of some agreed upon rules, then it would be clear that one was cheating.

Assuming there are no holds barred in any given confrontation, so to speak, then poison use wouldn't be dishonorable.

[GiantOctopodes]

doh forgot that part about true, was thinking it was based on caster level not target creatures level...

thanks

No problem! as was pointed out in another thread, though, your Simulacrum is *totally* a valid target for True Polymorph, and is even better than my previous thoughts, not to mention more generic and easier to obtain. Who better to cooperate than yourself?

[Eslin]

For fairly obvious reasons, this is impossible.



The problem here is that you're treating poison as nothing more than a d6 die roll, which doesn't address what it is but only how it impacts your dice as a meta-game construct.

The reason anything is considered good or evil or carries any other intrinsic connotation has literally nothing to do with the dice involved. So any approach that only looks at the dice involved is doomed to failure. Instead look at the meaning of poison, not simply the damage dice impact which actually carries no meaning at all.

To actually get to the root of the question:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PoisonIsEvil

That does a fair job of explaining it, and at the same time covers the ground of those societies in which poison is viewed neutrally.

I'd argue the question of dishonorable largely applies to the use of the poison. If both parties in a duel are openly acknowledged as using poisoned weapons (so that first blood becomes all the more crucial), then it is not dishonorable. However, if one party is using poison secretly to basically cheat, that's dishonorable. By that same token, it's pretty obvious when one is using a Flaming sword, so if doing so was a violation of some agreed upon rules, then it would be clear that one was cheating.

Assuming there are no holds barred in any given confrontation, so to speak, then poison use wouldn't be dishonorable.

Except almost everything on that page does not apply to injury poisons which do their damage instantly. The only relevant part is whether it's considered 'honourable', and occupies the exact same niche as magic weapons, weapon damage boosting spells and suchlike and no-one mentions those being evil.

[Dalebert]

True Polymorph is the way to go. You need something with a CR or level of 15 or higher, but once obtained, True Polymorph specifically states it retains the personality of the original creature, so if the creature in question is loyal, it remains loyal. A Warlock's Thrall or a Necromancer's Controlled Undead of the appropriate level are great choices, but far from the only viable targets.

Ah, but it would be a reasonable call if the creature changed into something that the caster was not capable of controlling for the DM to say the control is broken. Create Thrall has to be a humanoid. Necromancer's can control undead. If it is not longer a humanoid or an undead, is it still under their control? Maybe when the thrall becomes a dragon, sure it's personality doesn't change, but your control over it breaks and it has its non-thrall personality now.

[GiantOctopodes]

Ah, but it would be a reasonable call if the creature changed into something that the caster was not capable of controlling for the DM to say the control is broken. Create Thrall has to be a humanoid. Necromancer's can control undead. If it is not longer a humanoid or an undead, is it still under their control? Maybe when the thrall becomes a dragon, sure it's personality doesn't change, but your control over it breaks and it has its non-thrall personality now.

Nah, Create Thrall as an example says "That creature is then charmed by you until a remove curse spell is cast on it, the charmed condition is removed from it, or you use this feature again." So, unless it was killed and resurrected, or transformed into a form immune to charm or compulsion, or had remove curse cast on it, it does not matter that it turns into a form that can't be targeted initially by the effect, it has not qualified for the effect to cease. In fact, I'd argue that if you wanted a Dragon as your thrall, that's exactly how you would do it- dominate the dragon, get it to accept being polymorphed or true polymorphed into a humanoid, use feign death to make it incapacitated, then turn it into your thrall. Dismiss all existing effects, and voila, you have a Dragon thrall. As it can only be done on one creature, and all the charmed condition *really* does is prevent a creature from actively harming you and give you advantage on charisma based checks against it, I don't think that's remotely overpowered, especially for a unique effect available as the pinnacle of the Old One subclass.

The Necromancer ability is much the same- it works "until you use this feature again", no other qualifiers. It also gets a saving throw every hour if its int is 12 or higher, so if you true polymorph it into a form with an int of 12 or higher it would get saving throws every hour, potentially ending the effect, but with nearly mindless forms like Purple Worms, you're totally fine. It's somewhat of a moot point anyway, as Wizards who have True Polymorph can also cast Simulacrum, and I don't think there's any debate about that one, unless your character is filled with self loathing and suicidal tendencies your simulacrum is going to cooperate without issue. Still, both for the "rule of cool" and to allow characters to use their unique abilities, I certainly wouldn't try to screw over Necromancers for using their compelled minion in that role instead.

Edit: I want to make clear I am not disputing the statement "it would be a reasonable call ... for the DM to say the control is broken". DM Fiat always wins, and I do indeed agree that decision could be deemed reasonable. Just saying why I personally as a DM would not make that call, and where I would draw my ruling from.

[Vogonjeltz]

Except almost everything on that page does not apply to injury poisons which do their damage instantly. The only relevant part is whether it's considered 'honourable', and occupies the exact same niche as magic weapons, weapon damage boosting spells and suchlike and no-one mentions those being evil.

Instant poisons are easily covered by the idea that they are hidden, sneaky, and considered cheating.

Think of Hamlet.

[Eslin]

Instant poisons are easily covered by the idea that they are hidden, sneaky, and considered cheating.

Think of Hamlet.

Cheating's not evil, merely chaotic. And aren't magic swords often indistinguishable from regular swords?

[Mellack]

I would like to add in that there is a cantrip that does poison damage. Would those against poison weapons also consider any wizard who uses poison spray to be committing an evil act?